Even though the world is still in the middle of the pandemic, the invention of vaccines had changed the story drastically and countries like South Korea are already preparing to further ease the COVID-19 restrictions on large concerts and sports events on Monday.

The development was announced this past week when the country’ health official stated the government will be easing in on a series of coronavirus curb as the country moves towards getting its entire residents vaccinated.

In the announcement, about 4,000 people will be allowed to attend K-Pop concerts as well as other cultural shows starting from Monday and that is a big change compared to the earlier 100 people allowed on concerts since last year.

Stadiums will now be able to operate within 30% to 50% of their capacity and that will also depend on the districts. That number has risen from 10% enforced last year.

South Korea is one of the many countries that has fought off small clusters of the coronavirus infection in recent months with its daily number of infections hitting a new low on Sunday while the government pushes to get everyone jabbed in order to curb the spread of the vaccine.

Also some quarantine restrictions will be loosened according to the government especially for overseas visitors who have been fully vaccinated.

Starting from July 1st, some of those travelers can apply for exemptions from having to observe South Korea’s mandatory two-weeks quarantine if they are visiting family or are traveling for the purpose of businesses, academics and public interests.

More countries around the globe are getting rolling vaccine campaigns and that will further open up the world back to business and borders opened slowly but surely. Also small business, restaurants, gyms and other public places are already opening slowly based on government’s directives.

South Korean tour agencies were also preparing new travel packages after the government’s announcement last week that it is accelerating talks aimed at securing “travel bubbles” with a few countries, including Singapore and Thailand, the Korea Association of Travel Agents told Reuters.

Over 23% of the country’s population which accounts to 11.8 million people have received their first dose of the covid-19 vaccine according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) director Jeong Eun-kyeong.

Compared to other first world countries like UK (61%), Korea is way above Japan which has only managed to vaccinate only 12% of fits population according to a Reuters tally of state and local government sources.

While there has been a significant drop in new cases at nursing homes as many elderly have received vaccines, South Korea will only see a full-scale reduction in the number of local transmissions in September when over 70% will have been inoculated, said Jeong.

Both South Korea and Japan started vaccinating their population back in February but as of now, both aren’t at the same level any longer.