Can Indoor Masks Be Removed... "The Key Is Whether the Spread from China Influx Occurs"

[Asia Economy Reporter Byeon Seon-jin] As the indoor mask mandate is about to be lifted, COVID-19 cases imported from China have become a wild card. The health authorities did not consider the COVID-19 situation in China and anticipated that the mask mandate could be lifted as early as the end of January. The lifting of the mask mandate now hinges on whether the high-intensity quarantine measures introduced to block the inflow of COVID-19 from China can prevent a domestic resurgence.

This winter’s seventh wave of COVID-19 has recently been on the decline. According to the Central Disease Control Headquarters on the 2nd, as of midnight on the 1st, the number of new COVID-19 cases was 57,527. This is 5,577 cases (8.8%) fewer than the previous day (63,104) and 921 cases (1.6%) fewer than a week ago on December 25 (58,448). The number of new cases has decreased for five consecutive days compared to a week ago since December 28 last year. If this trend continues, it is analyzed that the peak of the seventh wave, which started in late October last year with around 30,000 cases and surged to over 60,000, is passing. On December 23, Director Ji Young-mi of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said at a regular briefing, “After confirming a mild peak in January and monitoring the trend for two weeks, the indoor mask mandate could be lifted as early as the end of January, after the Lunar New Year holiday.”

However, imported cases from China have emerged as a variable. In November last year, among 1,750 imported cases, only 1.1% (19 cases) were from China, but in the recent week (December 26 to January 1), this surged to 29.4% (152 cases). On the 1st, there were 110 imported cases, exceeding 100 for the first time in 89 days since October 4 last year (106 cases). The sharp increase in cases from China is due to many COVID-19 infections caused by new variants such as BF.7, a subvariant of the Omicron variant BA.5 circulating in China.

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCH) stated on December 23 that if two or more of the four indicators for lifting the indoor mask mandate (weekly cases decreasing for two consecutive weeks, weekly severe cases decreasing and weekly fatality rate below 0.10%, ICU bed availability above 50% within four weeks, vaccination rates of 50% for those aged 60 and over and 60% for infection-vulnerable facilities) are met, partial lifting of the indoor mask mandate could be discussed and implemented.

The indicator for COVID-19 cases has entered a downward trend, and medical response capacity (ICU bed utilization rate at 38.1%) is stable, but the average number of severe cases over the past week was 586, an increase of 48 from the previous week (538). Vaccination rates also fall short of the targets, with 30.7% for those aged 60 and over and 52.4% for infection-vulnerable facilities.

The key issue is how much the spread caused by imported cases from China will affect the domestic situation. From today, the CDSCH has implemented high-intensity measures to block Chinese travelers by mandating COVID-19 PCR testing for arrivals from China and suspending the issuance of short-term visas. Professor Kim Woo-joo of the Infectious Diseases Department at Korea University Guro Hospital said, “Since the importation of variant viruses circulating in China is the greatest concern, it is important to quantify and share information on how many whole genome sequencing analyses are conducted relative to confirmed cases to monitor COVID-19 variants.”