A team of mathematicians predicted that the number of new confirmed Covid-19 cases per day will drop to fewer than 4,000 in two weeks as the pandemic resurgence has turned into a declining phase.
A team at the National Institute for Mathematical Science (NIMS) concluded so, after considering the amount of movement of citizens aggregated from KT mobile communication location data, and the cumulative number of confirmed cases by province from Sept. 20 to Tuesday.
The NIMS' two-week prediction was the lowest so far, and other mathematician teams also forecast that daily Covid-19 cases will subside significantly.
According to a report from the Covid-19 mathematical modeling task force, an Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology research team conducted a study predicting that the number of new confirmed cases, which was 34,710 on Wednesday, will decrease to 15,658 on Oct. 12 and again to 11,881 on Oct. 9.
The research team recently estimated the R0, or an estimated reproductive rate of how many people may contract the virus from one infected person, during the past week as 0.7206 and stressed that if the R0 falls to 0.3, the number of confirmed cases will decrease to 5,676.
On Friday, Korea added 22,298 new Covid-19 infections, including 82 cases from abroad, bringing the total caseload to 24,933,756, according to the KDCA.
Friday's count is down from 28,648 cases reported on Thursday and lower than the weekly average of 23,538.
The nation also reported 41 more Covid-19 deaths, raising the death toll to 28,614. The fatality rate stood at 0.11 percent. The number of critically ill patients came to 329, up four from the previous day.
Despite the continued decline in Covid-19 virus cases, health officials announced additional quarantine measures for the elderly and students on Friday.
Such plans include installing negative pressure equipment at nursing homes and hospitals after concerns that ventilation systems at such facilities are vulnerable to infections, and deploying some 60,000 quarantine staff at more than 20,000 elementary and middle schools across the country to prevent infections among young students.
Quarantine officials also stressed that they plan to implement additional virus prevention measures during the upcoming college entrance exam scheduled for November as well.
According to the KDCA, about 44.68 million among 52 million Koreans have been fully vaccinated. In addition, about 33.6 million people had received their first booster shots, and 7.46 million had their second booster shots.