<Anchor>



The quarantine authorities have announced specific plans to lift the indoor mask duty.

While watching the current spread, wearing a mask indoors may change to a recommendation from next year's Lunar New Year at the earliest.



Let's talk about the report of Cho Dong-chan, a medical reporter.



<Reporter> The



quarantine authorities have presented four conditions for lifting the indoor mask duty.



If the number of confirmed patients decreases for 2 weeks or more, or the number of seriously ill patients decreases, and the weekly case fatality rate is 0.1% or less, there is more than 50% of intensive care beds available for one month, or the improved bivalent vaccine vaccination rate is 50% for those aged 65 or older and 60% in facilities vulnerable to infection When 2 out of 4 are met, e.g. when % or higher, an obligation turns into a recommendation.



Currently, only 68% critical care bed securing rate and 0.8% weekly fatality rate 1.5 are met.



The vaccination rate seems difficult to achieve, so the number of confirmed cases should decrease for more than two weeks, but the quarantine authorities expected after the Lunar New Year.



[Ji Young-mi/Chief of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: (The spread) I think it will probably reach a very gentle peak in January, and if we observe the decline for about two weeks after that...

.]



An official from the scriptwriter revealed that even if the actual application is after the Lunar New Year, the announcement could be made before the Lunar New Year.



However, the key variable is that the recent spread is steeper than before, and in particular, the proportion of BN.1, which has the greatest propagation power among mutations so far, is increasing.



[Park Hyang/Chief of Central Disaster Control Headquarters: After the first week of December, the trend increased by about 10% in the second week of December.]



Most indoor facilities such as schools, marts, and amusement parks are recommended. Although it changes, hospitals and nursing facilities are obligatory, and public transportation such as subways, railroads, buses, taxis, and airplanes are also obligatory.



The quarantine authorities emphasized that the recommendation is only to eliminate the 100,000 won fine for not wearing a mask, but it is still an important quarantine rule to block infection.



(Video coverage: Kim Min-cheol, Video editing: Lee Jae-seong, CG: Kang Kyung-lim, Seo Dong-min, Jang Seong-beom, Jo Soo-in)



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<Anchor>



Jo Dong-chan, a medical reporter, is here.



Q. Is it science quarantine?



[Cho Dong-chan/Medical reporter (specialist): Yesterday (22nd), there was an agreement between the people's strength and the health authorities.

This is the result of our SBS coverage.

Until the day before the party-government consultation, both the Central Script and Disease Administration said, "I will not reveal the specific time."

However, after the party-government meeting, he said, "The situation has changed to announcing the specific time in some way."

I wonder if this is the background of this ambiguous expression that the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that if the corona increase slows down in January next year, it can be released after watching for two weeks.

The political world must have done it out of respect for public opinion, but quarantine authorities sometimes have to go against public opinion, so it seems necessary to adjust the level.]



Q. What is the identity of the BN.1 mutation?



[Cho Dong-chan / Medical journalist (specialist): Let's look at the results of a study recently published by Peking University in China.

The current dominant species is BA.5.

However, BN.1 evades antibodies obtained after infection with BA.5.

The BA.5 antibody is less effective than the original omicron BA.1 antibody.

People who had BA.1 at the beginning of this year will have low amounts of neutralizing antibodies because six months have passed, and those who have BA.5 in the second half of this year will have high amounts of neutralizing antibodies, but the effect will decrease, so the number of people infected with BN.1 will inevitably increase rapidly.

Current propagation speeds are calculated to be twice as fast as BA.5.

The symptoms are in the order of stuffy nose, runny nose, cough, fever, and sore throat, but it is fortunate that it is lighter than BA.5 and does not seem to have a high fatality rate.

Only a part of BN.1's identity has been revealed yet, so I think we need to keep a close eye on its progress.]