The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) announced on Sunday that it will postpone lowering the infectious disease status of Covid-19 from Level 2 to Level 4.

If the pandemic is downgraded, mask mandates will be lifted from vulnerable facilities, case counting will be suspended, and the government will no longer bear some of the cost related to the testing and treatment of Covid-19.

"We had planned to lower the infectious disease level of Covid-19 to Level 4, which meant the pandemic will go on par with regular influenza, and the removal of the need for mandatory face masks at medical institutions at a briefing on Wednesday, but decided to postpone the announcement," a KDCA official said.

According to the KDCA, although the severity and fatality rate are decreasing, the number of new cases has recently increased for six consecutive weeks, which requires monitoring.

"We also considered the current situation of responding to issues related to the continuous heat wave," the official said. "We will come up with a new plan after closely monitoring the epidemic and prevention situation and consulting experts."

The number of new Covid-19 cases has been on the rise since the fourth week of June. Officials have predicted that the number of new cases will rise to 76,000 per day by the middle of August.

According to the KDCA, the average daily number of cases over the past seven days (Aug. 1-7) was 53,388, an increase of 4,864 (10.7 percent) compared to the previous week.

The average daily number of hospitalized severe cases in the last seven days was 185, and 14 deaths. This was slightly higher than the previous week' 174 severe cases and 13 deaths.

On a daily basis, the number of cases exceeded 60,000, with 64,155 cases reported on Aug. 2. However, while the weekly number of confirmed cases is increasing, the rate of increase has moderated.