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SEOUL: South Korea will impose stricter social distancing rules for the Seoul metropolitan area a month after easing them, authorities said on Tuesday (Nov 17), warning of an even bigger crisis if anti-COVID-19 efforts fail. they manage to stop an increase in cases.
Starting Thursday, the stricter sidewalks will ban public gatherings of 100 or more, limit religious services and audiences at sporting events to 30 percent of capacity, and require high-risk facilities, including karaoke clubs and bars. , to widen the distance between the guests.
South Korea has been one of the world’s coronavirus mitigation success stories after tackling the first major COVID-19 epidemic outside of China with aggressive monitoring and testing, but it continues to fight the persistent rise in infections.
The tightest restrictions came as the daily case count remained above 200 for the fourth day in a row, with a series of cluster outbreaks emerging from offices, medical facilities, and small gatherings in Seoul and the surrounding regions where roughly the woman lives. half of the 52 million inhabitants of the country.
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“Our efforts against the coronavirus are facing a crisis and the situation is particularly dire in the Seoul metropolitan area,” Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said at a meeting.
“Raised curbs would cause major disruption in our daily lives … but we all know from our experiences that there would be an even bigger crisis if we don’t act now.”
The Korea Disease Prevention and Control Agency (KDCA) reported 230 cases as of midnight Monday, marking the ninth consecutive day of triple-digit increases and the highest since early September.
Of those, 202 were transmitted locally and 28 imported, and nearly 68 percent of the domestic infections came from the Seoul metropolitan area, KDCA data showed.
The figures brought the country’s total infections to 28,998, with 494 deaths.
Health authorities have warned that the daily count could reach 400 in the coming weeks, asking citizens to adhere to strict hygiene standards and minimize year-end celebrations.
“It is important to achieve change without leveling the measures further, which could have a huge impact on people’s livelihoods,” Health Minister Park Neung-hoo told reporters, adding that the government will decide your next move in two weeks.
With the pandemic all over the world, the Foreign Ministry extended its special travel notice started in March for another month, urging all non-essential foreign travel to be canceled.
The KDCA said it was organizing an air ambulance to take six athletes and two officials from the men’s national soccer team who tested positive for the coronavirus from Austria, where they were staying for friendly matches.
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