Anchor: The daily number of infections continues to hover over one-thousand for the second day running. While the government has decided to tighten social distancing rules, it says it is still not the time to upgrade to the highest level.
Park Jong-hong has this report.

Report: Daily cases of COVID-19 in South Korea remained above one-thousand for the second straight day on Thursday.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA) said as of 12:00 a.m. Thursday, one-thousand-14 additional people tested positive, raising the country's cumulative caseload to 46-thousand-453.

It is the third time in the past week that over one-thousand people were confirmed within a 24-hour period.

Out of the new cases, 993 were local infections with almost 80 percent reported in the Seoul metropolitan area.

This has prompted the government to tighten quarantine regulations albeit at the current social distancing level for the time being. 

Gatherings at “hold’em pubs,” a venue for poker games and drinks, will be banned for ten days starting Saturday. The government also plans to issue an administrative order to ban people from sitting down at self-service cafés. 

Following a cluster at a ski resort in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province, the government has banned ski resorts outside of the Seoul metro area from operating after 9 p.m.

Meanwhile, the government remained cautious about raising social distancing to Level Three, even though the average daily number of new cases for the last week is 882-point-six - well within the threshold.

Health Ministry official Son Young-rae explained that there are two criteria considered when raising social distancing to the highest level: loss of the quarantine control net and the collapse of the health care system.  

Loss of quarantine control refers to the nation seeing a limit to its capacity to conduct epidemiological surveys. The collapse would signify that the health care sector is no longer capable of handling patients.  

Son said the government is currently expanding surveys and preemptive testing as well as the number of sickbeds and treatment facilities.  

The official went on to say that the government has launched discussions on the possibility of going to Level Three, reiterating that there will be no sudden upgrade in the distancing status.
Park Jong-hong, KBS World Radio News.