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As the statistics show that the Corona 19 situation is improving, the authorities will discuss next week whether to ease the indoor mask duty.

The results will come out before the Lunar New Year holiday at the earliest, but the number of severely ill patients this week is expected to be a variable.



I am Yu Seung-hyun, a medical reporter.



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After 2.5 out of 4 indoor mask mitigation conditions were met, positive indicators followed.



As of 0:00 today (9th), the number of corona confirmed cases was about 19,000, falling to the 10,000 level for the first time in 63 days since November 7 of last year.



The positive rate of short-term residents from China also reached single digits.



Yesterday, 7 out of 180 short-term residents who received a PCR test at the airport were confirmed, and the positive rate is 3.9%.



This is significantly lower than the 14.8% the day before yesterday.



Health authorities explained that in large Chinese cities, the corona epidemic can be seen as passing through the peak.



It is said that it will not have a significant impact on the domestic mask mitigation roadmap.



[Jung Ki-seok/Corona 19 Special Response Team: (Positive rate) should stay below 10% or below 5%, so you can think that the intensity of the epidemic in China has greatly weakened.]



The biggest variable in mitigating indoor masks is This is the trend of new critically ill patients in Korea.



This is because the number of critically ill patients and new critically ill patients who are hospitalized is not breaking.



The number of new critically ill patients, which had turned to a decreasing trend a week ago, increased slightly again.



However, since the number of new confirmed cases has decreased for two consecutive weeks, the number of new severely ill patients with a time lag of about two weeks is expected to decrease this week.



[Jeong Ki-seok/Corona 19 Special Response Team: If this number stabilizes to a certain extent, if we see this week, we will start discussing the adjustment of the indoor mask duty around next week.]



The quarantine authorities at the time of easing indoor masks It is expected to be discussed and announced within the next week.



(Video coverage: Park Young-il, video editing: Lee Sang-min, CG: Ryu Sang-soo · Choi Jae-young)