The government said Friday that it would work out institutional and cultural measures to allow Covid-19 patients to automatically take a leave of absence instead of lifting quarantine obligations for those who test positive for the virus.
It will decide whether to lift the quarantine obligation for confirmed patients at a Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters meeting Friday.
"If the government lifts the mandatory quarantine system, it will need to review various institutional and cultural measures that can help people to take a leave of absence when they are sick," said Son Young-rae, head of the social strategy division of the Central Accident Resolving Headquarters of the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The announcement comes amid concerns among experts that it is premature to lift the quarantine obligation as the cultural norm of taking a leave of absence when sick is not set in place in Korea.
Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency Commissioner Peck Kyong-ran also said, "There needs to be a social system and culture so people can rest and recover at home when they are sick."
Kim Yoon, a professor of medical management at Seoul National University College of Medicine, pointed out that there is a need for self-quarantine recommendations and guidelines for small- and medium-sized enterprises, self-employed people, and platform workers who find it difficult to self-quarantine or work from home compared to large corporations or government agencies.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has begun reviewing the emergency use approval (EUA) of AstraZeneca's Evusheld, a Covid-19 antibody treatment requested by the KDCA last Friday.
Evusheld is an antibody drug that directly administers the antibody to immunocompromised patients, such as blood cancer patients and patients receiving immunosuppressive treatment after organ transplantation, who cannot expect antibody formation through vaccination against Covid-19.
The drug works by binding to the spike protein of the Covid-19 virus and inhibiting the virus from entering human cells.
The food and drug safety regulator said it would review the clinical and quality data submitted and decide whether to approve emergency use after an expert advisory meeting and deliberation by the relevant committees.
Korea's daily Covid-19 tally dropped to the lowest tally in five months Monday as the country is working to return to pre-pandemic normalcy.
The KDCA said that Korea added 3,828 Covid-19 cases, including 60 from overseas, bringing the total to 18,229,288. Monday's tally is the lowest since Jan. 11, when the nation reported 3,094 cases.
The country added 17 Covid-19 deaths. The death toll reached 24,388, and the fatality rate stood at 0.13 percent.
The number of critically ill patients came to 95, down from 98 the previous day.
The government expects that the decline in the number of new cases will continue for the time being as the infection reproduction index for the first week of June, May 29 to June 4, was 0.74.
The reproduction index shows the average number of people a patient can transmit the virus. If the index rises above 1, it is difficult for epidemiological investigations or quarantine responses to keep up with the spread of the virus.
However, experts believe that the number of confirmed cases might increase this summer and peak in autumn and winter.
According to experts, if the Omicron subvariants begin spreading rapidly from July to August when the immunity of those infected from March to April will likely decrease, there is a possibility that it will end the current downward trend.
As of Monday, 44.61 million, or 86.9 percent of the population, had completed the full two-dose vaccinations, and 33.34 million, representing 64.9 percent, had received their first booster shots. More than 4.26 million people, or 8.3 percent of the population, had gotten their second booster shots, the KDCA said.