The government said Koreans will no longer have to wear face masks indoors from Jan. 30, except for several places such as hospitals, buses, subways, and pharmacies.
“During the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters meeting on Friday, the government will discuss and finalize a plan to ease the obligation to wear indoor masks from Jan. 30,” Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said at a task force meeting on Friday. “Among the four adjustment indicators that the government has set for easing indoor face mask rules in December of last year, three of the indicators, including the number of newly confirmed cases and the number of severely ill patients, have recently been steadily declining.”
External risk factors were also judged to be sufficiently manageable, Han said.
Han stressed that considering the fact that travel and face-to-face contact increase during the Lunar New Year holiday, the government decided on the timing of the eased mask rules after the holiday.
“During the Lunar New Year holiday last year, the weekly average number of confirmed cases increased significantly, and if the mandatory wearing of indoor masks is further eased, there is a possibility that the number of confirmed cases will increase temporarily,” Han said. “The quarantine authorities and local governments should thoroughly prepare for such possibilities during this year’s Lunar New Year Holiday.”
Prime Minister Han stressed that the government will fully prepare for the operation of screening clinics, one-stop medical institutions, on-call pharmacies, and special hospital beds for children, delivery, and dialysis patients so that stable Covid-19 diagnosis and treatment can be performed even during the holidays.
However, Han stressed to protect the vulnerable from infection, the obligation to wear a mask at medical institutions, pharmacies, facilities vulnerable to infection, and public transportation will remain in place for the time being.
“We will actively review whether to change the recommendation according to the trend of infection,” Han said. “Also, the importance of vaccination has increased with the easing of mask-wearing obligations.”
It is strongly recommended that those aged 60 or older and the elderly living in facilities vulnerable to infection receive vaccination as soon as possible, Han added.
On Friday, Korea added 27,408 new Covid-19 infections, including 94 cases from abroad, bringing the total caseload to 29,955,366, according to the KDCA.
The nation also reported 30 more Covid-19 deaths, raising the death toll to 33,134. The number of critically ill patients reached 453, down 12 from the previous day.