The quarantine authorities said Friday that they would start to discuss lifting the remaining COVID-19 control regulations, including all indoor mask mandates and the obligation to isolate for seven days quarantine after a case is confirmed.

"Now we will begin discussing the remaining disease control regulations, including lowering the COVID-19 crisis alert level, adjusting infectious disease level, lifting the seven-day isolation obligation, and lifting mask mandates in every place," Health and Welfare Minister Cho Kyu-hong said Friday morning at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters meeting held at Government Complex Seoul.

The government partially lifted the indoor mask obligation at the end of January, saying it would lift the remaining measures when the COVID-19 alert, which is currently in the "serious" stage, is lowered to the level of "warning" or "caution," or when the COVID-19 legal infectious disease level is adjusted from the current level 2 to 4.

Cho also said that the number of beds for COVID-19 patients will be reduced from current 3,900 to about 1,000, saying that the average daily number of confirmed patients has decreased for nine consecutive weeks, and the bed use rate is stable at 11.5 percent.

In addition, Cho asked education offices and schools across the country to make every effort to manage student health as the first semester without the indoor mask mandate has begun.