Starting Monday, the “With Corona” scheme will allow 10 to 12 people to gather socially and most businesses to operate ’round the clock, despite daily infection rates of over 2,000 in recent days.
Under the first stage of Korea’s three-phase “With Corona” strategy, the equivalent of the outside world’s “With Covid” measures, limits on operating hours will be removed for most businesses starting Monday, which includes restaurants and cafes, theaters, PC bang (internet cafes), noraebang (singing rooms) and indoor sports facilities.
Clubs and bars that allow dancing will be required to close at midnight, and even that will be lifted in the second phase set to begin around mid-December. Curfew on hagwon (cram schools), set at 10 p.m. in the greater Seoul area, will be lifted from Nov. 22, after the Korean CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test). The greater Seoul area consists of Seoul, Gyeonggi and Incheon.
Social gatherings will be allowed for up to 10 people in the greater Seoul area and up to 12 people in other regions, regardless of vaccination status. In restaurants and cafes, however, unvaccinated people will be limited to gatherings of four.
Places where the virus could spread more easily will require a “vaccine pass,” a Covid health pass system similar to those used overseas, for entry. This includes noraebang, bathhouses, indoor sports facilities, clubs and bars that allow dancing, casinos, nursing homes and senior citizen communities.
Vaccine passes can be a digital vaccine certificate from the COOV mobile application, a paper certificate or a sticker from local community service centers on ID cards. An unvaccinated person must present a negative PCR test result from the previous two days to get into those places.
People under the age of 19, those fully recovered from Covid-19 and individuals who cannot get a vaccine for medical reasons won’t be required to present a vaccine pass or a negative result.
As the passport system has met some resistance, the government will not implement it until Nov. 7, or until Nov. 14 for indoor sports facilities such as gyms and table tennis courts.
Mass events, including conferences, weddings, funerals and birthday parties for one-year-olds, a common Korean custom, will be limited to 100 people if they include unvaccinated people. If everyone has a vaccine pass or a recent negative test, the cap will be eased to 499 people.
The second phase is set to begin by early or mid-December, according to the Health Ministry, depending on its assessment of the first phase using the number of Covid-19 patients in critical condition and Covid-19 deaths. The second phase will be given a month or a month-and-a-half trial period, after which health authorities will make another assessment and decide whether to allow the country to move to the third phase.
In the third phase, there will be no restrictions on the number of people allowed to gather for personal social gatherings or for mass events.
In unveiling the three-phase “With Corona” scheme on Friday, the Central Disaster Management Headquarters, an inter-ministry bodies created to address the pandemic, said that since more than 70 percent of the population was fully vaccinated, “the time has come to move forward.”
* The article was written by Esther Chung of Korea JoongAng Daily and the copyright of the figure is at the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
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