South Korea has decided to extend tougher coronavirus measures for another two weeks as the country is still on guard for a surge in cluster infections ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.

The East Asian nation will continue to ban private gatherings of five or more people, limit long-distance travel, suspend operations at bars and nightclubs, and restrict late-night service at restaurants and cafes.

The government’s move is apparently aimed at helping the country smoothly begin coronavirus vaccinations and start the spring semester for most schools.

“If virus cases resurge, another wave of the pandemic could grip the country, with the possibility that thousands of COVID-19 cases could be reported in a short period of time,” Vice Health Minister Kang Do-tae said in a press briefing, per South Korea’s local newswire Yonhap News Agency.

“The government thinks it will be important to stabilize virus outbreaks as much as possible until the holiday and to lead this effort until the onset of COVID-19 vaccinations.”

However, President Moon Jae-in’s administration has been strongly considering whether to ease social-distancing measures to help revive the economy crippled by the yearlong pandemic.

After a third wave propelled a record daily case count to more than twelve hundred, new virus infections have been on a downward trend in recent weeks.

New daily cases stayed in the three-hundreds for a third straight day on Tuesday, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). The total caseload now sits at roughly seventy-nine thousand, along with fourteen hundred related deaths.

South Korea also has set an ambitious goal of vaccinating 70 percent of its entire population of fifty-two million by September. According to the KDCA, the nation is hoping to achieve herd immunity by November.

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said the country will receive enough Pfizer vaccine doses for sixty thousand people by mid-February and enough AstraZeneca vaccine doses for up to 2.2 million within the first half of this year.

In preparation for the massive inoculation program, the KDCA has already outlined who will receive the potentially life-saving vaccines first.

High-risk health-care workers at hospitals, sanatoriums, and nursing home facilities will get the first vaccines in the first quarter, while seniors aged sixty-five or older and those working at other medical facilities will get the shots in the second quarter, the KDCA announced.

In the third quarter, vaccines will be provided to individuals who suffer from chronic diseases, in addition to adults aged between nineteen and sixty-four.

South Korea is also continuing to suspend all direct flights arriving from Britain over concerns about a new coronavirus variant originating from there. The country has reported more than thirty cases involving the new strains from the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn. 

Image: Reuters