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Just two years ago from today (the 20th), January 20, 2020, was the first confirmed case of Corona 19 in Korea. At that time, it was thought that this infectious disease with an unfamiliar name would soon disappear, but even two years later, Corona still dominates our daily life.



When the vaccine arrived early last year, expectations that the mask could be removed soon grew, but Corona started a counterattack with the delta mutation at the fore, and now a daunting opponent called Omicron is threatening us again. As Omicron continued to spread, the number of new confirmed cases per day in Korea reached 6,000 in 27 days. The government expects Omicron's share to exceed half this weekend.



Today's first news, reporter Kim Deok-hyun.



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It was on the 18th of last month that the government reintroduced the quarantine measures of 4 people, a restaurant, and a cafe at 9 pm.



After that, the number of confirmed cases, which had dropped to the 3,000 level, rose again to the 6,000 level.



It has been 27 days since the 24th of last month.



The match recorded 2,418 players, the most in history.



It is all due to the omicron mutations that are spreading rapidly in the community.



As of the 15th, the national detection rate of Omicron was 26.7%, and especially in Honam, 59.2%, which was already the dominant species. The government expects that the proportion of Omicron will exceed half this weekend.



[Park Young-joon / Head of Epidemiological Investigation Team, Central Quarantine Countermeasures Headquarters: (Omicron) The Nth infection in the community was confirmed until the 11th transmission.

Areas with a low (detection rate) are also expected to rise rapidly...

.] The



positive rate, which means the rate of confirmation among the total number of tests, has risen to the 3% level this week.



It supports the observation that the number of new cases tomorrow could exceed 7,000.



7,000 confirmed a day is the standard that the government has announced that it will immediately switch to the Omicron response stage.



[Lee Ki-il / First Supervisor (last 14 days): (New confirmed cases) When there are 7,000, we plan to implement it immediately, even if Omicron is less than 50%.]



But the government suddenly changed its words.



He said that when the average number of confirmed cases in the community rises to the 7,000 level, a transition point will be determined.



Both the time point and the criteria are not clear.



The government said that the neutralizing antibody to Omicron increases up to 29 times during the third vaccination, and it has urged people to get the vaccine before the Lunar New Year holiday, the peak of the spread.



(Video coverage: Kim Min-cheol, video editing: Choi Hye-young)



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