국내 코로나 97명 확진, 거리두기 5단계... 자영업자들에게 희소식?

97 is the daily Covid-19 tally in South Korea today... with most of them in the densely populated greater capital area.
Authorities here have unveiled a new virus prevention scheme - more meticulous than the previous three-tiered system, the five-stage scheme aims to better reflect the situation on the ground.
Kim Yeon-seung has the details.
The South Korean government on Sunday announced its new five-stage social distancing measures.
"We are dividing the social distancing rules further... from three levels into five... to better reflect reality. We are also redesigning our disease prevention measures in a tailored fashion,... to make them more effective."
This new system will take effect from Saturday, November 7th.
The government will use the weekly average number of daily COVID-19 cases to decide which of these social distancing levels will apply.
The revision provides more detailed and clear rules for areas such as schools, gatherings, sports and religion.
The new measures also intend to provide some relief to local businesses... by making guidelines more suitable.
Restaurants and cafes have similar measures as before, but PC rooms, which struggled to survive under the old measures, have been reclassified.
"For PC rooms, if there's a limit to selling food or stuff like that, it gets difficult for us to even pay rent."
Under the revised rules, PC rooms can operate almost fully even under level 2.
"If social distancing measures are elevated to level 2, customers in PC rooms or similar facilities should sit at least one seat apart and shouldn't eat or drink indoors.
But most PC rooms aren’t really affected by these restrictions as they already have barriers between seats, which means customers can sit next to each other."
Wedding halls, funeral homes, movie theaters, and cram schools also used to be categorized as high-risk but will now have the same leeway as PC rooms.
Kim Yeon-seung, Arirang News