South Korea to allow eating at movie theatres, indoor gyms

Following South Korea’s move last week to lift several Covid-19 restrictions, the country’s PM announced on Friday that next week, people will be allowed to eat in many public spaces that were earlier prevented due to the country’s Covid restrictions. These include movie theatres, indoor gyms, religious centres, trains, and busses.

The PM, Kim Boo-kyum, says the government will consult with health authorities and related groups to decide how to tackle concerns about social distancing. PM Kim also confirmed that the Covid-19 infectious disease level will be lowered to the second-highest level out of the 4-level system from Monday.

Last week, South Korea lifted the cap on gatherings, and business hour curfews. It’s still enforcing a mask mandate, though across the country. During a Covid-19 response meeting on Friday, Kim said the average daily number of Covid-19 cases had declined about 40 percent from a week ago. He said there were also fewer serious cases and deaths at this stage.

“But removing restrictions does not mean that the risk of infection is gone.”

South Korea stopped requiring overseas visitors to quarantine earlier this month. South Korea has been known as a Covid hotspot this year after being one of the World Health Organisation’s ‘postcard’ countries for controlling the virus in mid 2020.

Last month, the country reportedly accounted for 20 percent of new Covid-19 cases worldwide, more than any other country, according to statistics-tracking website Worldometer.info.

Today, on a list of 226 countries and territories, South Korea ranks as having the eighth most Covid-19 cases in the world. There are now a total of 16,895,194 cases, and 22,133 deaths.

SOURCE: Nation Thailand | Worldometers | Nikkei Asia