Coronavirus: South Korea extends curbs ahead of Lunar New Year to stem Omicron wave
- The extended measures will last until February 6, including a 9pm curfew for restaurants, cafes and bars
- Elsewhere, millions of Indian devotees took a holy dip into the frigid waters of the Ganges River despite rising cases in the country
The curbs were restored a month ago just six weeks after being eased under a “living with Covid-19” scheme, as record-breaking numbers of new cases and critically ill patients threatened to saturate the country’s medical system.
Daily tallies have dropped since, with 4,542 new cases for Thursday from a peak of almost 8,000 in mid-December, but the downtrend appeared to bottom out this week due partly to a surge in Omicron infections.
“The indicators have improved more or less but the number of new cases are no longer decreasing this week,” Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum told an intra-agency meeting, noting that Omicron’s share of domestically transmitted infections has reached 20 per cent in just two weeks.
The extended curbs will last until February 6, including a 9pm curfew for restaurants, cafes and bars, but the limit on private gatherings will be raised to six fully vaccinated people from four.
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Health officials have warned that without stricter distancing curbs Omicron would become dominant within two weeks, possibly sending daily tallies up to an unprecedented 20,000 in February and 30,000 in March.