Health authorities will announce Thursday new indicators to be used to assess the country's COVID-19 risk level amid the ongoing shift for a gradual return to normalized life.

The criteria were to be unveiled last week but was delayed to Tuesday and then again to Thursday as related agencies asked for more time for sufficient deliberations.

Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA) spokesperson Ko Jae-young said Monday it received feedback from a panel of experts over the weekend regarding the assessment criteria. 

After additional discussions this week - internally and with local governments - Ko said the new indicators will be made public on Nov. 18 for adoption from next week.

The occupancy rate of ICU beds in the greater capital region reached 76-point-four percent as of 5 p.m. Sunday, surpassing the 75 percent mentioned by the government as a threshold to consider issuing contingency pandemic measures.

In response, authorities said implementing emergency plans will be determined through a comprehensive evaluation in line with the overall virus situation.

Meanwhile, concrete conditions that would invoke emergency measures were expected to be disclosed with the new risk assessment index. But the KDCA said that will be announced separately at a later time by the Central Disease Control Headquarters.