COVID-19 Declines for 2 Consecutive Weeks... "Infectious Disease Classification Downgrade Expected Soon"

The number of new COVID-19 cases has been decreasing for two consecutive weeks. Accordingly, the quarantine authorities plan to announce on the 23rd, after consulting the Infectious Disease Advisory Committee on the 21st, the downgrade of the COVID-19 infectious disease classification (from level 2 to level 4) and the easing of quarantine measures at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCH).

According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) on the 21st, the weekly average number of new COVID-19 cases from the 15th to the 21st was 40,355, a 17.6% decrease compared to the previous week (49,012 cases). The reproduction number, which indicates how many people one infected person infects, also dropped below 1. This means the outbreak is subsiding. A KDCA official stated, “The summer surge, which had been increasing continuously for the past seven weeks, has turned into a decline, and the epidemic is showing signs of slowing down.”

The quarantine authorities initially planned to implement the easing of COVID-19 measures around mid-month, but postponed the plan to monitor the trend of the surge as the summer outbreak intensified. Once the second phase of the recovery roadmap is implemented, COVID-19 diagnostic testing will become paid, and case counting will shift from exhaustive surveillance to sample surveillance. However, mask-wearing is likely to be maintained for the time being in hospital-level medical institutions and infection-vulnerable facilities.

However, the KDCA will continue close monitoring and analysis of overseas variant virus occurrences. A KDCA official said, “Although the fatality rate of COVID-19 has dropped to around 0.02?0.04%, and it may be a mild infectious disease for the general population, it still poses a risk to high-risk groups such as the elderly.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.