South Korea’s updated policies for Coronavirus 2021

South Korea has been going through lock-downs and travel bans in a span of one year and ten months while practicing minor health and safety guidelines such as social distancing, wearing face masks, and going through quarantine. In this article, Ziptoss has made a brief guide on the updated plans and policies by the Ministry of health and welfare, and the central disaster and safety countermeasures headquarters.

Within the time of South Korea’s lockdown, the country has experienced about 4 lockdowns alongside border locking, social distancing, tracing, quarantine, taking antigen tests, and treating. The government has done its best and has eventually suppressed the rising numbers of Covid-19 cases. On the other hand, these quarantine protocols have affected and given damage to different factors such as small businesses, the self-employed, having lesser support for vulnerable citizens, and the loss or postponing of the students’ education. It was also a struggle for people to find places for rent in Seoul, South Korea.

“A Better Korea”

Today, since more people are getting vaccinated and South Korea is getting fewer Covid-19 cases, this change is affecting the government’s policies as well. A plan called “A Better Korea” was created to promote restoring daily lives to normalcy one by one.

“A Better Korea” has 3 main parts. The first part of this program is a new transition criteria such as intensive care unit, hospital bed capacity, vaccination completion rate, weekly cases and death are set. Health protocols and quarantine measures are carried out in the order of living facilities, large-scale events and private gatherings.

Part two of “A Better Korea” will be full of recoveries. Focusing on restoring people’s lives equally in terms of livelihood so no class will be left behind, and citizens can enjoy life as it is.

The third part of this plan is the final step, to minimize the government’s daily recovery plan to normalcy, making everything accessible to the public with little to no more restrictions. This final step will only be applied when a certain number of vaccinated people and lesser daily average of infected people are reached.

Here is a quick guide to the steps of the government’s updated policies as of December 2021:

• Social distancing should still be observed but with lesser restrictions.
• Social gatherings will now be allowed in bigger numbers(such as sport events, birthday parties, and wedding celebrations).

• Face masks are still required in public places, especially in closed and crowded establishments.
• Curfew hours will be removed in some establishments(some can open their shops for 24 hours), and some will have extended open hours till 10 PM.
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• Study halls, cinemas, PC rooms, and KTV rooms are allowed to open extended hours.
• Vaccinated citizens will have some benefits in terms of dining indoors, and joining gatherings.

As more people are getting vaccinated everyday, South Korea is slowly opening doors to getting their normal lives back. Even though they have less restrictions, citizens should still observe at least minimum health and safety protocols, especially in closed and crowded places to keep them and their loved ones safe.