With the chilly weather and the decrease in new Covid-19 confirmed cases, health officials are keeping a close eye on the possibility of an early winter resurgence of the virus.
"When looking at the recent trend of the number of confirmed cases, the decline has become stagnant," said Park Hyang, head of virus control at the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Central Disaster Management Headquarters. "However, the government does not believe that daily Covid-19 cases have started to rebound as it is difficult to see whether it will increase in just one week."
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) plans to conduct further analysis and watch the trend, Park added.
Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Lee Ki-il agreed.
"R0, or an estimated reproductive rate of how many people may contract the virus from one infected person, last week was 1.09, exceeding 1 for the first time in nine weeks," Lee said. "While the R0 shows a trend with the number that occurred in the past, the number of Covid-19 tests had decreased two and three weeks ago as there were many holidays."
The R0 seems to have surpassed 1 as the number of tests increased last week at a time when the rate of decrease in the number of confirmed cases has slowed down, Lee added.
Lee stressed that when taking into account the impact of the recent holiday season, it is too early to judge that a resurgence is happening.
Quarantine authorities and experts predict that the winter resurgence will occur next month or in early December.
On Friday, Korea added 24,751 new Covid-19 infections, including 60 cases from abroad, bringing the total caseload to 25,244,255, according to the KDCA.
The nation also reported 30 more Covid-19 deaths, raising the death toll to 28,952. The fatality rate stood at 0.11 percent. The number of critically ill patients came to 233, down 16 from the previous day.
According to the KDCA, about 44.68 million among 52 million Koreans have been fully vaccinated. In addition, about 33.63 million people had received their first booster shots, and 7.51 million had their second booster shots.