Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said that the government has completed the development of a method that can quickly detect the new omicron variant of COVID-19 through a PCR test and will put it to use from Thursday. 

The prime minister made the remarks on Wednesday at the start of a coronavirus response meeting in Seoul. He said the best policy now is to suppress the spread of the omicron variant as much as possible through tight quarantine and to speed up vaccinations. 

Kim said that thanks to active public participation in tougher social distancing, weekly infections began to decrease after rising for eight straight weeks and the reproduction rate has fallen below one. 

He said with the improved virus situation, COVID-19 patients are waiting no more than a day for hospital beds.
  
The prime minister, however, stressed that it's too soon to be relieved, noting that the occupancy rate of ICU beds for critically ill patients in the capital region remains high and the number of critical patients is still over one-thousand. 

Kim said that the government will decide on and announce antivirus measures that will be applied from next week after a thorough and objective analysis of the current situation.