SEOUL— South Korea has become the latest nation in the Asia-Pacific region to lift restrictions and abandon its COVID-19 strategies despite the alarming rise of infections in the nation.
According to Korea’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), Seoul is trying to take under contrrol its fourth and largest COVID-19 outbreak with reported 2,100 new local infections for the past 24 hours.
The Greater Seoul area remains under level 4 restrictions, the toughest and highest restriction, where gatherings of five or more people are banned. Authorities fear that the upcoming Korean Thanksgiving Chuseok Holiday on September 17 could worsen the outbreak.
Despite the recent mushrooming of cases, President. Moon Jae-In’s office announced the possible plans on Wednesday of lifting restrictions once enough number of the population are fully vaccinated.
KDCA’s Commissioner Jeong Eun-Kyeong mentioned that 80 percent of Korean adults have received first and second doses while 90 percent of people aged 60 and above have received complete jabs as well, saying that restrictions could be lifted across the nation.
Son Young-Rae, a South Korean Health Ministry official, stated that at current vaccination rates, the target will most likely be hit by late October. According to him, about 42.6 percent have been fully vaccinated already.
South Korea has reported its confirmed COVID-19 cases of 267,470 since the pandemic started, while the death toll rose to 2,343.