"The Day Masks Were Taken Off Outdoors" ... New COVID-19 Cases Reach 20,000s for the First Time in 3 Months

Severe Cases and Home Treatment Patients Also Decrease

On the first day of the outdoor mask mandate lift, the 2nd, an office worker is seen taking off their mask while heading to work near Pangyo Venture Town in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.
Seongnam ? Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

On the first day of lifting the outdoor mask mandate, the daily number of new COVID-19 cases dropped to the 20,000 range for the first time in three months.

The Central Disease Control Headquarters announced that as of midnight on the 2nd, 20,084 new cases were reported, bringing the total cumulative number of confirmed cases to 17,295,733. The daily new cases recorded in the 20,000 range is the first since February 4 (27,436 cases), 87 days ago. Numerically, this is the lowest since February 1 (18,336 cases).

As the Omicron wave stabilizes, daily new cases have remained below 100,000 for 12 consecutive days since the 21st of last month (90,851 cases). The number of confirmed cases reported on Mondays has also decreased weekly, with 14,277 fewer cases than a week ago on the 25th of last month (34,361 cases), and 27,646 fewer than two weeks ago on the 18th of last month (47,730 cases).

The number of critically ill patients hospitalized decreased by 32 from the previous day (493) to 461. After peaking at over 1,300 daily critically ill patients at the end of March during the Omicron wave, the number has fallen below 1,000 since mid-last month and has continued to decline. Health authorities and research institutions expect the weekly average of critically ill patients to remain below 500 after the first week of this month and to drop to the 300s by the third week.

The number of patients under home treatment was 319,777, down 41,964 from the previous day (361,741). Among them, 28,809 are in the intensive management group receiving health monitoring from home treatment management medical institutions, while the rest are managing their health independently at home. The number of COVID-19 related deaths was 83, remaining below 100 for three consecutive days.

Infectious disease experts believe that immunity formed through vaccination or natural COVID-19 infection is driving the decline in cases, so the impact of lifting the outdoor mask mandate on the epidemic is expected to be minimal. Professor Kim Woo-joo of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Korea University Guro Hospital pointed out, "Since the COVID-19 infectious disease classification has already been downgraded to level 2 and isolation requirements have been lifted, there is no longer scientific evidence supporting outdoor mask use." However, there remains a possibility that lifting the outdoor mask mandate could lead to laxity in overall prevention measures, including indoor mask-wearing.