The government’s criteria for lifting the indoor mask mandate will be set this month.

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo revealed the plan on Friday while chairing a government meeting on the unionized truckers’ strike and COVID-19 responses.

He said that the indoor mask mandate will be downgraded to a recommendation once an assessment of the quarantine situation meets a set of standards, for which the government will consider the trends in daily cases, serious cases and deaths.

Han pointed to inoculation by bivalent COVID-19 boosters as a key condition for lifting the indoor mask mandate.

The rate of bivalent booster inoculation among those aged 60 or older is at 24 percent, below the 50 percent target, while the rate at nursing hospitals and facilities vulnerable to infection is at 37 percent, short of the 60 percent target.