The government may likely announce prolonging social distancing measures on Friday, considering the possibility of a wider spread of the Omicron variant during the year-end and New Year holidays.

Faced with the resurge of Covid-19 cases, Korea suspended the “living with Covid-19” system about 10 days ago, despite loud protests from self-employed and small business owners. Since then, the government has sought to secure hospital beds and the medical workforce while raising the vaccination rate, especially among older adults and adolescents.

"Fortunately, the number of newly confirmed cases, which had continued to soar, is showing signs of slowdown with the number of people waiting for hospitalization falling from 1,000 to 200," Minister of Health and Welfare  Kwon Deok-chul said Monday. "However, we are not sure whether the current drop in confirmed cases is temporary, especially because of the Omicron variant."

The share of people infected by the new variant in Korea remains far smaller than in the U.S. or Europe, totaling several hundred. However, experts do not rule out the possibility of Omicron emerging as the dominant strain before long.  

Health authorities will soon begin using the recently developed polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to detect the Omicron variant in four hours.

The nationwide social distancing measures are scheduled to end on Jan. 2. Under the measures that went into effect on Dec. 18, the government has enforced a strict restriction by limiting the number of people allowed for private gatherings across the country to four and reinstating a 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. curfew for bars, cafes, and restaurants.

It will review the pandemic situation during the year-end holidays and decide whether to extend the social distancing further or resume a normal life.

Minister Kwon said that the government works with large hospitals to secure additional beds for severe patients regarding the sickbed shortage.

"Although we needed administrative order initially to mobilize additional beds for severe patients, the turnover rate of sickbed will be solved with the cooperation of the medical community," Kwon said. "The government will do its best to protect the lives and health of the public, so please cooperate and participate following the basic quarantine rules and receive vaccines."

Kwon also requested the public to take Covid-19 shots more actively, saying, "The effect of vaccines is clearly shown in the ratio of severe patients among the unvaccinated population, five times higher than the fully vaccinated people. So, please go and take the booster shot as if it is mandatory."

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) confirmed 4,125 new virus cases on Friday, including 4,207 local infections, raising the cumulative caseload to 611,670. An additional 55 people died of Covid-19, lifting the death toll to 5,300, with a fatality rate of 0.87 percent. It is the first time in 20 days that the daily tally sank below 5,000

However, critically ill patients shattered another record with  1,078, staying above 1,000 for a straight week.

The health authorities reported that the country found 69 new omicron variant cases, bringing the total to 445.

The government has vaccinated 43,982,890 people – 11,148,572 with the AstraZeneca vaccine, 24,551,688 with Pfizer's vaccine, 1,508,812 with Janssen's vaccine, 6,773,818 with Moderna's vaccine – with the first shot of the vaccine up 3,247 from the previous day. In addition, it has provided more than 15.2 million booster shots to older adults and other vulnerable groups.

Some 82.4 percent of Koreans were fully vaccinated, 85.7 percent had received their first shots, and 29.6 percent had received booster shots.

Meanwhile, the government has signed pre-purchase contracts with U.S. drug giant Pfizer Inc. and MSD, a subsidiary of U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co., each for their oral Covid-19 pills for 362,000 patients and 242,000 patients, respectively, health officials said.

They added that Korea is pushing ahead to sign other deals to secure oral medication for 400,000 people.

On Monday, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety also approved the emergency authorization of Pfizer's oral Covid-19 pill, making it the first such pill to be used in the country as early as mid-January.