Increased Travel During Vacation Season Compared to Pre-COVID... 'Peak of Confirmed Cases' Forecast Revised Upward Again

Nationwide Mobility Increases for 3rd Week... Variable in Resurgence of Spread

On the 10th, as the spread of COVID-19 continued, citizens were getting tested at the screening clinic of Yongsan-gu Public Health Center in Seoul. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters announced that as of midnight that day, there were 151,792 new confirmed cases. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] As the COVID-19 resurgence continues, it has been found that the amount of travel during this summer vacation season has increased compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 spread, which had slowed down for a while, is showing an increasing trend again.

On the 10th, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters of the Ministry of Health and Welfare analyzed mobile phone data provided by Statistics Korea and found that the nationwide travel volume from the 1st to the 7th was recorded at 268.58 million cases. This is 2.0% (5.34 million cases) higher than the same period in 2019, before the COVID-19 outbreak began in Korea.

The travel volume, which was 245.45 million cases from July 11 to 17, has continuously increased to 253.80 million cases from July 18 to 24, and 267.89 million cases from July 25 to 31. In particular, during the peak vacation season last week, the travel volume in the Seoul metropolitan area was 129.70 million cases, down 2.4% (3.17 million cases) from the previous week (132.87 million cases), while the non-metropolitan area recorded 138.88 million cases, up 2.9% (3.86 million cases) from the previous week (135.02 million cases).

Im Sook-young, the Situation General Manager of the Quarantine Countermeasures Headquarters, said at a briefing the day before, "Due to the influence of the vacation season, social movement and contact have become frequent, resulting in a somewhat larger increase in confirmed cases."

Earlier, the quarantine authorities predicted that the peak of the resurgence would form around 280,000 confirmed cases between mid and late August. However, as the 'doubling' phenomenon, where the number of new confirmed cases doubled every week, eased from the end of last month, the forecast was lowered to around 200,000 cases, and at the beginning of this month, it was further lowered to 150,000 cases. This was because the spread of variants was not as fast as initially expected, and the increase in confirmed cases had slowed down for a while.

However, as travel volume surged during the vacation season and the increase in confirmed cases became noticeable, they revised the forecast again, mentioning the peak as "200,000 cases in August" and stating that "additional observation is needed to judge the trend."

Park Hyang, the Quarantine General Manager of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, said at the briefing, "The characteristics of the variant virus, increased contact during the vacation season, and immunity reduction over time after vaccination are considered reasons for the increase in the spread."