Moon not to hold New Year press conference to focus on handling Omicron
President Moon Jae-in delivers his New Year speech at Cheong Wa Dae, Jan. 3. Joint Press Corps
President Moon Jae-in will not hold a New Year press conference as he focuses on handling the COVID-19 situation with the highly transmissible Omicron variant becoming the dominant strain in Korea, a senior presidential official said Monday.
The presidential office had been preparing for the New Year press conference as Moon wrapped up his eight-day visit to the Middle East last Saturday.
"In a situation where the Omicron variant has become the dominant strain, the New Year press conference is difficult to realize while focusing on coping with it," Park Soo-hyun, senior presidential secretary for public communication, told reporters.
Asked whether the press conference was canceled, Park replied his remarks do not constitute a cancellation, because Cheong Wa Dae did not publicly announce a plan to hold a New Year press conference in the beginning.
Earlier in the day, the government said the detection rate of the Omicron variant had reached 50.3 percent as of last week, meaning the Omicron has become the dominant COVID-19 virus strain in Korea. (Yonhap)