Health authorities are considering moving up the beginning of winter vacations amid the record spread of influenza among school children. 

The Health and Welfare Ministry and the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a news conference on Tuesday, unveiling its flu prevention measures and contingency plans. 
 
The outpatient incidence rate of the flu last week was estimated at 152-point-two per one-thousand elementary, middle and high school students, the highest since related figures began to be monitored in 1997.

The number of overall flu infections out of one-thousand outpatients reached 13-point-three between in the last week of November, already exceeding the eight-point-nine threshold for a flu epidemic designation. By mid-December, the figure rose to 61-point-four per one-thousand outpatients.