The government said Wednesday that it would not change the current strict social distancing measures in the greater Seoul area related to private gatherings to contain the fourth wave of Covid-19 infections as soon as possible.

Provincial and municipal administrations are considering taking “plus alpha” measures in addition to tight curbs to stem the resurge of new virus cases.

Son Young-rae, a spokesperson at the Central Disaster Control Headquarters, stressed that the restrictions on private gatherings are a significant measure for infection control, and the government has no plans to ease the restriction. However, as the nation has implemented a strengthened system for about a month, the government is checking rooms to improve the policy.

"It has been about a month since the government implemented the Level 4, the highest in the four-tier social distancing system. We have continuously received opinions to revise the measure to some extent reflecting the reality," Son said. “The government is also contemplating infection controls taking into account the characteristics of the rapidly spreading delta variants.”

Delta variants are much more contagious than the existing strain and are likely to worsen the symptoms. Recently, two cases of Delta plus variants were also found in Korea.

Son said the quarantine authorities are closely monitoring the situation before strengthening infection control to cope with the Delta variant.

The government will announce adjusted social distancing measures that will remain effective for the next few weeks on Friday.

Local autonomous bodies outside the Seoul metro region are also beginning to introduce more stringent social distancing rules as the fourth viral wave spreads from the capital area to the rest of the country. Non-capital areas reported 628 new virus cases on Wednesday, the highest number since the fourth viral wave began.

Some local governments cut public transportation services by half after 10 p.m. and banned entertainment facilities and karaoke rooms as part of the infection control.

For instance, Busan has implemented a Level 3 social distancing scheme since July 21 but started to apply infection control schemes equivalent to Level 4 like the one in the Seoul metro region. In addition, through an administrative order, the nation’s second-largest city suspended the operation of entertainment facilities until Friday and prohibited eating and drinking at night on beaches crowded with people enjoying vacation.

On Wednesday, new Covid-19 cases rebounded to 1,725, including 1,664 local infections, increasing the cumulative caseload to 203,926, according to Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

Two more people died of the coronavirus, pushing the death toll to 2,106 with a fatality rate of 1.03 percent.

The government has vaccinated 20,169,592 people – 10,413,432 with the AstraZeneca vaccine, 7,745,153 with Pfizer's vaccine, 1,129,766 with Janssen's vaccine, 881,241 with Moderna's vaccine – with the first shot of the vaccine up 218,941 from the previous day.

Korea has completed vaccinating about 39.3 percent of the nation's population.

The government said it has almost completed negotiations with Pfizer and Moderna to bring in an additional 50 million vaccine doses for next year.