The government announced compensation measures to 3.2 million small businesses whose sales have decreased due to the Covid-19 epidemic, but some disgruntled business owners have set about to file class actions.

On Friday, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum vowed to provide additional financial support to small businesses affected by the new virus curbs.

"We came up with additional support measures for small business owners and self-employed people by mobilizing all financial resources available now," Kim said. "The government has devised such measure to compensate for losses caused by strengthened quarantine measures, such as the reduced sizes of private gatherings."

The government will allocate a 4.3 trillion-won support package for small businesses hit hard by the pandemic as part of the plan. It comprises 1 million won ($843) payment to each of the 3.2 million small businesses and quarantine items worth 100,000 won to 1.15 million places.

However, small business owners expressed regrets about the government's support package, calling for additional supports.

"We highly evaluate that the government has made some positive progress by accepting our requests for loss compensation. However, concerns remain that the strengthened quarantine policy will inflict fatal blows to small business owners expecting a business recovery," the Korean Federation of Micro-Enterprise said in a statement. "The support package is insufficient to resolve the astronomical damage to small businesses amid the protracted pandemic."

The federation stressed that the government fully compensate the loss of small businesses resulting from quarantine restrictions.

Some small business owners said they would take legal actions against the government.

"One million won is less than a month's rent," said Oh Ho-seok, a co-representative of Covid-19 Victims of Self-Employment Coalition. "The monthly rent of most taverns is more than 2 million won."

Oh stressed that the group is currently preparing a class action lawsuit to claim compensation from the government for losses since the outbreak of Covid-19.

"We plan to open a related website and receive applications from self-employed people who wish to participate," Oh said.

The financial aid package came after the government suspended the "living with Covid-19” system and reinstated tight social distancing rules by limiting the number of people allowed for private gatherings across the country to four people from Saturday. The new distancing rules will remain in effect until Jan. 2.

Besides, the government will allow only fully vaccinated people to gather at such facilities. Unvaccinated people should use these places alone or use take-out or delivery services. The government has also shortened the operating hours of restaurants, cafes, entertainment facilities, karaoke rooms, public baths, and indoor sports facilities to 9 p.m. throughout the country.

Aside from the compensation measure, the government announced that schools in the greater Seoul area would resume remote learning and run at about two-thirds or 75 percent capacity from next Monday, except for first and second graders.

Religious facilities will also have a maximum of 70 percent attendance if participants are fully vaccinated and 30 percent, or up to 299, for those unvaccinated.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) confirmed 7,435 new virus cases, including 7,400 local infections, raising the cumulative caseload to 551,551.

The public health agency reported three more omicron variant cases, putting the total at 151. An additional 73 people died of Covid-19, lifting the death toll to 4,591, the third-highest number since the pandemic, with a fatality rate of 0.83 percent.

With the daily Covid-19 tally staying above 7,000 for the third consecutive day, the number of critically ill patients decreased to 971, down from the all-time high of 989 reported Thursday.

The government has vaccinated 43,300,593 people – 11,134,803 with the AstraZeneca vaccine, 23,817,597 with Pfizer's vaccine, 1,505,268 with Janssen's vaccine, 6,747,170 with Moderna's vaccine – with the first shot of the vaccine up 95,755 from the previous day. In addition, it has provided more than 9.7 million booster shots to older adults and other vulnerable groups.

As of Tuesday, 81.7 percent of Koreans were fully vaccinated, 84.3 percent had received their first shots, and 19 percent had received booster shots.