South Korea daily COVID-19 cases top 100,000, curfew eased ahead of election

Authorities announced on Friday they would move a curfew on restaurants and cafes from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., a nod to increasing criticism from business owners.

Reuters

February 18, 2022 / 10:05 IST

People wearing face masks cross a road amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Singapore. (Representative image: Reuters)

South Korea's new daily COVID-19 cases topped 100,000 for the first time amid its Omicron outbreak, with authorities saying social distancing measures would be only slightly eased ahead of the March 9 presidential election.

Authorities announced on Friday they would move a curfew on restaurants and cafes from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., a nod to increasing criticism from business owners.

"The situation for small business owners and the self-employed is desperate," President Moon Jae-in told a meeting of aides on Friday, when calling for the parliament to quickly pass a supplemental budget with measures for "resolving the difficulties of the people's livelihood."

Other anti-pandemic rules such as a six-person cap on private gatherings, a seven-day quarantine for international arrivals, mask mandates in public spaces, and vaccine passes for a range of businesses, will be in place until at least March 13, officials said, after the election.

Moon is barred by the constitution from running again. The two leading contenders are locked in what may be the tightest race in 20 years.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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