The government plans to consider tightening quarantine regulations, including an emergency suspension of the step-by-step transition into living with COVID-19, should case numbers further grow.

Senior health ministry official Son Young-rae said during a press briefing on Tuesday that if the situation continues to become more serious, the government will consider and discuss various measures.

The number of critical cases reached a record 549 as of 12:00 a.m. Tuesday, with 69 percent of beds for those patients occupied nationwide. In the Seoul metropolitan area, the occupancy rate stood at 83 percent, with 836 patients waiting for bed assignments for a day or longer.

The government on Monday set last week's COVID-19 risk level for the nation as "high," and that of the capital region to the top degree of "very high."

While authorities had suggested that an emergency plan could be enforced if the weekly evaluation reaches "very high," Son said there is not yet an urgent need to take such action.