The National Infectious Disease Crisis Response Advisory Committee said it held a video conference on Tuesday to discuss the timing of adjusting the indoor mask obligation.
The committee is an expert advisory body of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCH). The quarantine authorities had previously decided to promote a two-level plan for lifting indoor face masks, in which the obligation to wear indoor masks is first lifted in facilities excluding public transportation, welfare facilities, and medical institutions, and then completely lifted after seeing the trend later.
The committee plans to discuss detailed conditions and timing of the first stage lifting.
Based on the results of discussions, the CDCSH will hold a meeting on Wednesday or Friday to possibly decide when to lift the indoor mask duty.
Quarantine indicators, such as the number of newly confirmed cases and the number of severely ill patients, have recently been steadily declining.
The number of new confirmed Covid-19 cases in the past week (Jan. 8 to Jan. 14), was around 300,000, a decrease of about 27 percent from 410,000 cases reported in the first week of January (1st to 7th). Weekly deaths decreased by about 11 percent from 400 to 356, and weekly new severe cases decreased by about 17 percent from 530 to 440.
With the exception of winter vaccination targets, Korea has met all indicators that the government has set as a prerequisite before lifting indoor face mask rules, such as weekly cases decrease of more than two weeks in a row, weekly new critically ill patients decrease compared to the previous week and weekly fatality rate below 0.10 percent, and available capacity for critical care beds of 50 percent or that can be mobilized within four weeks.
The government had previously stressed that it would start discussing lifting indoor face mask rules if two of the four indicators have been met.
Separately, there were concerns about the influx of confirmed cases from China, but the positive rate of Covid-19 testing among short-term entrants remains stable at around 10 percent.
However, health officials stressed that the Lunar New Year holiday, which starts this Saturday, is a variable in determining when to start the eased indoor mask rules.
Health officials have expressed concerns that if the mask duty is lifted right before the Lunar New Year holidays when there is a lot of population movement, the number of confirmed cases could surge.
Health officials are also worried that announcing the timing of the release right before the Lunar New Year may excessively ease the vigilance of individual quarantine.
On Tuesday, Korea added 40,199 new Covid-19 infections, including 95 cases from abroad, bringing the total caseload to 29,861,234, according to the KDCA.
The nation also reported 30 more Covid-19 deaths, raising the death toll to 33,014. The number of critically ill patients reached 503, down seven from the previous day.