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| A sign attached at the entrance of a building in Seoul reads that visitors are required to wear face masks, Friday. Yonhap |
Details on lifting indoor mask mandate to be announced Friday
By Lee Hyo-jin
Next month's Lunar New Year holidays could be the first mask-free holiday season for Koreans in three years, as the government is considering lifting the indoor mask mandate before the public holiday, which runs from Jan. 22.
While the Ministry of Health and Welfare is set to announce on Friday detailed measures on when and how the mask requirement will be relaxed based on discussions with medical experts, some advisors taking part in the talks said it is highly likely that the mandate will be gradually lifted from mid-January at the earliest.
The relaxation of the measures is likely to come in two phases. In the first phase, masks will no longer be a requirement ― but a recommendation ― in public places except for high-risk facilities such as hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies and public transportation. The rule will then be fully lifted in all indoor facilities in the next phase.
"We are talking about lifting the requirement from mid-January after we pass the peak of the winter resurgence," an expert was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency. "The final decision will be made based on indicators (related to the pandemic)."
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) recently announced a set of indicators based on which it will decide when to lift the mask mandate. They include the number of daily cases, the reproduction rate (the number of new infections caused by each case), the medical capacity in emergency rooms, the number of critical cases, as well as booster vaccination coverage among the elderly population.
The requirement to wear masks ― both outdoors and indoors ― was first implemented in Korea on Oct. 13, 2020. After the outdoor mask mandate was lifted in May of this year, the indoor mask rule has been one of the last remaining COVID-19 restrictions here.
Experts ― who generally agree that the mask requirement should eventually end ― gave widely differing views on the appropriate timing to remove masks indoors.
Jeong Jae-hun, a professor of preventive medicine at Gachon Univeristy, believes that the country is generally prepared to return to normalcy.
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| Most people are seen wearing masks inside a shopping mall in Seoul, Dec. 5. Yonhap |
"It seems more appropriate for the mask mandate to become a recommendation, though there should be a social consensus on how we will evaluate the risks of the virus situation," he said at a public hearing that took place on Dec. 15 to discuss the lifting of the mask requirement.
On the other hand, Kim Woo-joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University Guro Hospital, argued that the country should remain vigilant about a winter resurgence spurred by the growing presence of new variants.
"The BN.1 and BQ.1 subvariants together now take up over 25 percent of the total number of infections and their share is expected to increase in the next few weeks. It seems absurd to talk about ditching the mask at this point of time, when the government should be focusing on the preparation of hospital beds and the medical response system," he said.
The daily number of infections jumped to over 86,000 on Dec. 13 ― the highest in three months ― as the country is seeing a rapid surge in Omicron's latest subvariants. The latest study by the National Institute for Mathematical Sciences predicted daily infections to reach 100,000 in the next couple of weeks. The country reported 58,862 new daily cases Sunday.
Moreover, there are suspicions that health authorities are being pressured to lift the mandate based on political calculations, rather than scientific data. Discussions on dropping the indoor mask mandate gained momentum after Daejeon City Hall and South Chungcheong Province requested the central government to ease the requirement earlier this month.
Talks further gained pace after ruling People Power Party lawmaker Kwon Seong-dong met with Health Minister Cho Kyu-hong last week and expressed his hope that people will be able to celebrate the upcoming Lunar New Year holidays without masks.
Prior to the meeting, Kwon had criticized the ineffectiveness of the indoor mask rule and urged the government to take active measures to lift the mandate by the end of January.
