Some of South Korea's corporate giants have asked staff to test themselves for Covid-19 before returning to work after the Lunar New Year holidays, amid concerns the break could fuel the spread of the highly infectious Omicron variant, Reuters reports.

Kakao Corp, operator of South Korea's dominant chat app, went further and blocked employees from coming to the office for two weeks, as the country's daily infections hit record highs. Kakao barred employees from entering the office until February 18 without approval, with very few exceptions. Even then, the employee is required to self-diagnose with a test kit in a prepared space and enter only after a negative result.

Many people in South Korea travelled during the holidays to see family, likely leading to an uptick in infections.