Seoul, March 4 (BNA): South Korean officials announced the easing of social distancing restrictions even as the country saw its deadliest day of the epidemic on Friday, reflecting poor political ability to deal with the rapidly developing Omicron boom in the face of a mounting economic toll and a presidential election. next week.
Interior and Safety Minister Jeon Hye-chul said the curfew at restaurants, cinemas and other indoor businesses will be extended by an hour from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. starting Saturday.
He said he noted people’s fatigue and frustration with extended restrictions and damage to livelihoods.
Officials have maintained a limit on the number of private social gatherings of six, acknowledging the “doubts” posed by Omicron’s accelerating spread that has put the country on the verge of a hospital surge.
Jeon’s announcement came from a government meeting discussing the national response to COVID-19 shortly before the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported 186 deaths in the last 24 hours, breaking the previous one-day record of 128 set the day before.
The 266,853 coronavirus infections diagnosed in the last 24 hours were a one-day record and represented a 60-fold increase from daily levels in mid-January, when Omicron emerged as the dominant strain. The cumulative national case count was around 3.96 million after adding over 3.11 million in February alone.
Omicron appears less likely to cause serious illness or death than the Delta variant that hit the country hard in December and January, but hospital admissions are creeping in amid the widening outbreak.
The strain on the hospital system is likely to get worse in the coming weeks, given the time lag between infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
While nearly 800 virus patients were in serious or critical condition, Deputy Health Minister Lee Kee-il said the country was not in immediate danger of running out of hospital beds, with nearly half of the 2,700 intensive care units designated to treat COVID-19. It is still available.
More than 925,000 virus patients with mild or moderate symptoms have been asked to isolate at home to save hospital space. The state has also reshaped its testing policy around rapid antigen test kits, despite concerns about their accuracy and tendency to false-negative results, to provide lab tests mostly to priority kits.
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