Authorities in S. Korea lift vaccine pass mandates on most public venues ahead of Omicron peak

내일부터 식당, 카페 등 11종 다중이용시설 방역패스 일시중단 Right... Soa... thank you... for now. IN A SPAN... of ONE WEEK... Korea has ADDED... ONE MILLION COVID-19 CASES... to PUSH... its TOTAL TALLY... to ABOVE... THREE MILLION. Shin Ye-eun joins me... now. Ye-eun... welcome. Good afternoon. Tell us more... about the grim milestone... that... the country has recorded. Sure, Sunny. If you recall,... the country passed the 1 million mark earlier this month,... after more than 2 years... since Korea reported its first infection. Then in just 15 days,... we passed the 2 million mark. Now, in a single week,... we've hit the 3 million mark,... which shows us just how contagious the Omicron variant is. The number of people in critical condition is also doubling... as the Omicron surge continues. In the last four weeks,... we've seen the number of critically-ill patients... go from a daily average of 2-hundred 72... to 5-hundred 41. Accordingly,... hospital beds have quickly filled up. Last week,... nearly four out of ten ICU beds were occupied,... jumping 10-point-five percentage points from the week before. Korea's Prime Minister has forecast... that Korea's Omicron peak... may arrive sometime in mid-March,... causing up to a quarter-million infections per day. Despite that reality... I understand... we are looking... ahead... to more changes... in our current prevention guidelines? That's right Sunny. Starting Tuesday,... authorities will lift vaccine passes at most public facilities. In other words, people visiting bars, restaurants or cafes will no longer have to show proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test to enter. In a briefing on Monday,... Interior and Safety Minister Jeon Hae-cheol said... this will free up extra manpower... that can be used instead... for the care of high-risk patients. Authorities have also decided to overturn their initial decision... to expand vaccine passes to teens. They were set on requiring vaccine passes from April... for those aged 12 to 18. How are authorities assessing... the effectiveness... of their response... to COVID-19? Well... on the domestic front,... many gave a positive review... of Korea's antivirus measures. This includes Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum,... who said Korea is doing a better job compared to other countries. In a Facebook post on Sunday,... the Prime Minister wrote how Korea has been able to keep... the number of critically-ill patients, deaths and ICU bed usage... relatively low. He said as of February 21st,... the number of deaths per 1 million people in Korea... was only 1-hundred 43. Whereas... this figure had surpassed 2-thousand in the U.S., France and UK. But according to Bloomberg,... Korea is no longer one of the ten best places to live in... during the pandemic. Bloomberg has been releasing... its COVID-19 resilience ranking... every month from 2020. In February,... Korea's ranking fell 12 places... and is now 21st out of the 53 countries in the report. While Korea has shown progress... in the number of cases and fatalities,... it was graded poorly for economic activity and quality of life. All right Ye-eun... thank you for now. Do stay... for more talks. #COVID19 #infection #Omicron 📣 Arirang News(Facebook) :   / arirangtvnews   📣 Arirang News(Twitter) :   / arirangtvnews   📣 News Center(YouTube) :    / newscenter_arirangtv   2022-02-28, 14:00 (KST)