South Korea for the first time entered five digits in daily new COVID-19 cases for Wednesday, just days after omicron officially replaced delta as the dominant variant here. Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum told a meeting of the government COVID-19 response headquarters that in the latest 24 hours 13,012 cases had been recorded -- marking a stark jump from the prior record of 8,571 cases set the prev...

Omicron has risen to dominance all across South Korea about eight weeks since its discovery here. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported Monday that omicron has displaced delta as the dominant COVID-19 variant, representing slightly over 50 percent of sequenced positive samples for the prior seven days. The agency said based on the latest metrics the risk level for COVID-19 wa...

Korea is limiting the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests -- which have long remained the gold standard of COVID-19 diagnosis -- in parts of country where omicron is dominant, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare Friday. Coming into effect from Jan. 26 in three cities of Gwangju, Pyeongtaek, Anseong and the entire South Jeolla Province, the new testing protocol will be expanded t...

Omicron is spreading through South Korea at a faster pace with the potential to cause a sharper rise than earlier projections, according to an expert advising the government. Dr. Jung Jae-hun, a preventive medicine specialist and COVID-19 adviser to the prime minister, said Thursday the omicron wave is “feared to be worse than previously thought.” Three weeks ago, all of the scenarios modeled b...

“As omicron goes on to become dominant, the restrictions that we have now may need to be eased further,” Son said. The ministry has said that once omicron starts dominating the outbreak, Korea will abandon its rigorous virus control strategy known as 3T -- test, trace and treat -- and focus on providing “targeted protection” for vulnerable people. Dr. Jung Jae-hun, a COVID-19 advisor to the p...

The South Korean government said Monday it would appeal a Seoul court’s decision to suspend the vaccine pass mandate requiring children and adolescents to be fully vaccinated or negative in tests to access public places. The Ministry of Health and Welfare told a news briefing it would incorporate a part of the court’s decision to retract the mandate at lower-risk facilities for adults, while mai...

Seoul court on Friday afternoon has suspended the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s forthcoming policy requiring kids as young as 12 to be fully vaccinated or tested to access public spaces until a further decision is made. It also suspended the requirement for those entering large stores to have proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test. The requirement for minors was to begin taking ...

When the inevitable omicron explosion descends on South Korea, the kind of restrictive approach to dealing with the virus will have run its course, top officials say. In a news briefing Friday, the Health and Economy ministries said Korea will focus on keeping its businesses and other aspects of daily life as open as possible once the new variant starts dominating the scene. The characteristics...

Kang Soon-won, a head nurse overseeing the hospital’s remote monitoring program, said that at-home patients who develop worrying signs like persistent fevers or low blood oxygen levels can be brought in for an outpatient appointment. Last month, each nurse was having to check in on 100 or more patients. “That means one nurse was making 300 phone calls a day. Now we are seeing a third of that,” s...

Omicron may spell the beginning of the end of the pandemic, a leading infectious disease doctor at South Korea’s top national hospital said Wednesday. Dr. Oh Myoung-don, who heads the National Medical Center‘s committee for clinical management of emerging infectious diseases, told a news conference Wednesday, “Omicron is a distinctly different virus from the coronavirus as we know it. COVID-22, ...

A progressive lawyers’ group Tuesday slammed an anti-corruption investigative agency established by President Moon Jae-in administration over alleged spying on South Koreans. Lawyers for a Democratic Society, more widely known by the Korean acronym Minbyun, held a round-table talk with civic groups to address recent allegations of communications surveillance by the Corruption Investigation Offic...

To deal with a possible testing crisis driven by an omicron surge, South Korea says it would give people at higher risk PCR tests first, while lower priority people take at-home rapid antigen tests. The Ministry of Health and Welfare said the country’s COVID-19 diagnosis system, which so far has only used the highly accurate PCR tests, may start using the rapid antigen tests for less urgent case...

Korea’s new policy requiring people to be completely vaccinated or cleared in tests to enter public places is stirring up a wave of protests and court challenges. On Saturday civic groups and local community organizations marched from Seoul Station to Gwanghwamun Square demanding that the compulsory vaccine-or-testing policy be scrapped. The Saturday rally, among the firsts of many that is being...

South Korea has bought an additional 400,000 courses of Paxlovid, the COVID-19 antiviral pills developed by Pfizer, health officials said Wednesday evening. With the latest purchase, the country has secured enough oral treatments for 1 million people in total -- Pfizer’s for 762,000 people, and the rest from Merck. “Adding pills to our treatment protocol will help stabilize and expand the at-hom...

The mandatory vaccine pass continues to fan controversy, with legal and health authorities clashing over its necessity at some places and possible rights violations. Legal experts say the mandatory vaccine pass, among other disease control policies, raises points of constitutional contention that stretch beyond the realm of public health and science. Health authorities on the other hand say the ...