Next Week, South Korea Lifts Outdoor Mask Mandate

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JAKARTA - South Korea will next week revoke its mandate for masks for outdoor use, Prime Minister Kim Boo-Kyum said Friday.

The revocation is the latest step taken by South Korea in relaxing various regulations related to COVID-19 while trying to coexist with the Omicron variant.

The abolition of the mandatory wearing of masks will take effect two weeks after South Korea lifted most of the restrictions related to the pandemic, including curfews on restaurants and businesses.

"We concluded that we can no longer look away from the ... inconvenience our people experience when they have to wear masks even when walking alone or having a picnic with their family", Boo-Kyum said as quoted by Antara, Friday.

However, residents are still required to wear masks at events attended by more than 50 people, such as campaigns, concerts, and sports stadiums, he said.

The daily number of coronavirus cases in South Korea has slid below 100,000 after briefly peaking in mid-May, at 620,000 cases per day.

South Korea in general has managed to stem the number of deaths and cases of the COVID-19 crisis thanks to a broad vaccination movement.

The country has aggressively scaled back its tracking and containment efforts, which previously helped South Korea record success during most of the first two-year period of the pandemic.

Nearly 87 percent of South Korea's 52 million people are fully vaccinated and 65 percent have received boosters, according to figures from the country's Disease Control and Prevention Agency.