Health officials said they would shorten isolation time for people infected with the Omicron variant and those who had close contact with them from 14 to 10 days.
Officials said Tuesday that they planned to curtail the isolation period for the Omicron-infected people as the variant did not show differences in their transmission period with the existing Delta or other variants.
"As we have been confirmed that it is manageable to shorten the isolation, the period will be shortened from 14 to 10 days from next week," said Park Young-joon, head of the epidemiological investigation team at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
There were many unknown facts about the Omicron variant, which made the health authorities maintain an isolation period at 14 days regardless of their vaccination history, Park said. However, as a result of analyzing while responding to the site for a month, officials could confirm 99.9 percent of the cases on the ninth day of testing, he added.
However, it will be difficult to further cut the period to five days for all asymptomatic patients and their close contacts, as the U.S. government did, Park said.
“We cannot follow the U.S. example right away because there are both acceptable and unacceptable elements for us,” he added.
The country reported four new omicron variant cases, bringing the total to 449. Among them, 183 omicron variant cases are imported and 266 locally transmitted, the KDCA said.
Overall, the KDCA confirmed 3,865 new virus cases on Tuesday, including 3,777 local infections, raising the cumulative caseload to 615,532. An additional 46 people died of Covid-19, lifting the death toll to 5,346, with a fatality rate of 0.87 percent.
The daily tally fell below 4,000 for the first time in 28 days, continuing a downward trend since Nov. 30, when the country began seeing a surge of infections.
"The overall epidemic level has turned toward a decreasing trend in new virus cases, but the number of severely ill patients remains high," Ministry of Health and Welfare Spokesman Son Young-rae said, adding that he expected the number of critical patients and deaths to drop shortly. However, critically ill patients increased to 1,102, marking the second-highest level after the 1,105 recorded in Christmas.
The government said the increasing vaccination for the third dose and strengthened social distancing measures may have reversed the infection trend.
The government has vaccinated 44,064,239 people – 11,150,827 with the AstraZeneca vaccine, 24,628,394 with Pfizer's vaccine, 1,509,111 with Janssen's vaccine, 6,775,907 with Moderna's vaccine – with the first shot of the vaccine up 75,170 from the previous day. In addition, it has provided more than 15.9 million booster shots to older adults and other vulnerable groups.
The KDCA said 4.88 million doses of Pfizer vaccines are expected to arrive at Incheon International Airport on Wednesday, bringing the accumulated vaccine arrivals to 117.4 million.
On Dec. 18, the government reinstated a set of revised virus restrictions across the country, which will remain until Jan. 2 to stem the spread of the virus.
It marks a reversal of the government's "living with COVID-19" scheme that began early last month to return to normalcy by relaxing virus restrictions in phased steps.
Under the new measures, the maximum size of private gatherings is limited to four people nationwide, from the previous limit of six in the capital area and eight elsewhere. A 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. curfew is applied to businesses as well, depending on their type of service.
Health authorities put the risk level of the pandemic in the country over the past week at the highest level for five weeks in a row. The authorities will decide Friday whether to extend the current distancing guidelines.