The government said Monday that it would phase out quarantine restrictions from November and return to normalcy by next January.

The decision came as 70.1 percent of 52 million Koreans have completed their vaccination eight months after the country kicked off its nationwide inoculation campaign in February.

The health authorities plan to carry out their plans for daily recovery in three phases at six-week intervals.

If there are no unexpected events, such as an abrupt surge in new virus cases, the first phase of the reorganization will begin on Nov. 1, the second phase on Dec. 13, and the third phase on Jan. 24, health officials said.

In the run-up to the “living-with-Covid” phase, the government will remove all restrictions related to facility operation, events, and private gatherings, leaving only basic rules such as wearing masks indoors and its electronic visitor's list.

From Nov. 1, it will allow all businesses to operate 24 hours a day, except for entertainment facilities.

However, for some facilities with a high risk of infection, such as entertainment facilities and indoor sports facilities, the government will implement a "vaccine pass," which allows only those who have completed vaccination or those who have tested negative for the virus to enter such facilities.

The authorities will also increase the limit of private gatherings to 10 people regardless of whether or not they received the vaccine. In addition, they will allow events of less than 100 people without conditions and implement the vaccine pass for events that have more than 100 people attending.

In cases where the government detects a risk of medical systems collapses, such as the utilization rate of intensive care units and inpatient beds exceeding 80 percent, the government will temporarily suspend the transition to daily recovery and activate an emergency plan.

The government believes that if the daily number of confirmed cases exceeds 5,000, there is a high possibility that the intensive care unit will quickly reach its maximum capacity. In such emergencies, they will stabilize the quarantine situation through temporary and strong measures, such as expanding vaccine passes, strengthening restrictions on private gatherings, limiting the size and time of events, prohibiting visits to nursing hospitals.

Officials said they would implement the transient phase for at least four weeks if needed in an emergency.

Asymptomatic and mild patients, excluding those over 70 years of age, homeless people, mentally ill, and dialysis patients, will receive home treatment to reduce workload at treatment centers.

After the nation recovers to pre-pandemic life, officials are concerned that the number of confirmed cases would increase sharply like in other countries. Even if the inoculation rate reaches 80 percent, it means that 11 million people will still not have received the vaccine, they said.

Those who have completed inoculation also have concerns about reduced vaccine efficacy and the continued emergence of variant cases.

"We agreed to experts’ opinion that if quarantine rules are relaxed, the number of confirmed cases will inevitably increase," Ministry of Health and Welfare Spokesman Son Young-rae said during a press briefing. "No matter how gradual the mitigation is, it will be unavoidable that the current reduction in cases during the fourth viral wave will start to increase again."

Korea has given the first shot to 40,768,114 people – 11,103,962 with the AstraZeneca vaccine, 21,675,857 with Pfizer's vaccine, 1,476,853 with Janssen's vaccine, 6,507,712 with Moderna's vaccine – with the first shot of the vaccine up 3,730 from the previous day.

As of Monday, 70.1 percent of Koreans were fully vaccinated, while 79.4 percent have received their first shots.

On Monday, the country added 1,190 Covid-19 cases, including 1,167 local infections, raising the total caseload to 353,089, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Seven more people died from the virus, raising the death toll to 2,773 with a fatality rate of 0.79 percent.

The daily cases have since stayed in the quadruple digits, including the record high of 3,273 on Sept. 25.

Although Korea has logged more than 1,000 daily cases since early July, it is seeing a downward trend in its coronavirus infections after the fourth wave of the pandemic peaked in late September.