Quarantine authority: ‘Covid-19 cases could resurge from late June’

The South Korean government has predicted that Covid-19 cases could resurge in the nation from late June. Due to the emergence of different variants, the predicted timing of ‘resurgence in the fall’ has been significantly advanced from earlier predictions.

According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on Friday, daily Covid-19 cases in Korea will fall to 8,309 in late June, before increasing to 9,014 in late July. The prediction is based on the assumption that infected patients follow the obligation to remain in isolation for seven days.

If the obligation is completely lifted, daily Covid-19 cases are projected to surge to 24,725 in late June and 49,411 in late July. “If immunity decreases among people as the vaccine’s protective efficacy declines due to new variants, resurgence of Covid-19 could start in this summer, and the epidemic could reach its peak around September to October,” said Kim Heon-ju, deputy commissioner of the KDCA.

As a result, Seoul has extended the duration of a confirmed patient’s obligatory isolation, which it planned to lift from as early as May 23, to June 20. The government thus plans to reassess the situation around the spread of Covid-19 four weeks from now, and readjust the healthcare system by allowing confirmed patients to get treatment at neighborhood clinics, before considering whether to lift obligatory isolation or not.


jyr0101@donga.com