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South Korea appeared to be winning the fight against coronavirus – the rapid increase in its testing, contact tracing and quarantine efforts paid off when it weathered an early outbreak without the financial pain of a lockdown. But a deadly resurgence has reached new heights during Christmas week, prompting an examination of conscience on how the nation sleepwalked into crisis.
The 1,241 infections on Christmas Day were the largest daily increase. Another 1,132 cases were reported on Saturday, bringing South Korea’s number of cases to 55,902.
More than 15,000 were added in the last 15 days alone. An additional 221 deaths during the same period, the deadliest stretch, brought the death toll to 793.
As the numbers continue to rise, the impact on people’s livelihoods deepens and public trust in government erodes. Officials could decide to increase social distancing measures to maximum levels Sunday, after holding out for weeks.
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Tighter restrictions may be unavoidable because broadcasts have outpaced efforts to expand hospital capacity.
In the Seoul metropolitan area, more facilities have been designated for the treatment of COVID-19 and dozens of general hospitals have been ordered to assign more ICUs for virus patients. Hundreds of troops have been deployed to help locate contracts.
Ahn Young-joon / AP
On December 7, an open-air shopping street remains empty amid fears of a coronavirus outbreak in Seoul, South Korea.
At least four patients have died at home or in long-term care facilities while awaiting admission this month, said Kwak Jin, an official with the Korea Agency for Disease Prevention and Control. The agency said 299 of the 16,577 active patients were in serious or critical condition.
“Our hospital system will not collapse, but the overcrowding of COVID-19 patients has significantly hampered our response,” said Choi Won Suk, professor of infectious diseases at the Ansan Hospital of Korea University, west of Seoul.
Choi said the government should have done more to prepare hospitals for a winter surge.
“We have patients with all kinds of serious illnesses in our ICUs and they cannot share any space with COVID-19 patients, so it is difficult,” said Choi. “It is the same medical staff who have been fighting the virus for all these months. There is an accumulation of fatigue. “
Critics say the government of President Moon Jae-in became complacent after quickly containing the outbreak this spring that targeted the southeastern city of Daegu.
Recent weeks have underscored the risks of putting financial concerns before public health when vaccines are at least months away. Officials had eased social distancing rules to their lowest level in October, allowing high-risk venues like clubs and karaoke rooms to reopen, though experts warned of a viral spike during the winter when people spend more hours in the park. inside.
Jaehun Jung, professor of preventive medicine at Gachon University School of Medicine in Incheon, said he anticipates that infections will gradually decrease over the next two weeks.
The quiet streets and long lines that wind around the test stations in Seoul, which temporarily provide free tests to anyone, regardless of whether they have symptoms or clear reasons to suspect infections, demonstrate a return to public alert after months of pandemic fatigue.
Authorities are also cracking down on private social gatherings through Jan.3, closing ski resorts, banning hotels from selling more than half of their rooms, and setting fines for restaurants if they accept groups of five or more. .
Lee Jin-man / AP
People queue to wait for coronavirus tests in Seoul, South Korea, on December 17, 2020.
Still, reducing transmissions to the levels seen in early November, from 100 to 200 per day, would be unrealistic, Jung said, anticipating that the daily figure would resolve between 300 and 500 cases.
The higher baseline could require more social distancing until vaccines are rolled out, a dire outlook for the low-income workers and the self-employed who power the country’s service sector, the part of the economy that the virus has damaged. plus.
“The government should do everything possible to secure sufficient supplies and accelerate the administration of vaccines as soon as possible,” Jung said.
South Korea plans to secure around 86 million doses of vaccines next year, which would be enough to cover 46 million people in a population of 51 million. The first supplies, which will be AstraZeneca vaccines produced by a local manufacturing partner, are expected to be delivered in February and March. Officials plan to complete the vaccination of 60 to 70 percent of the population around November.
There’s a disappointment that the vaccines don’t arrive sooner, though officials have insisted that South Korea could afford a wait-and-see approach, as its outbreak isn’t as dire as it is in the United States or Europe.
South Korea’s previous success could be attributed to its experience fighting an outbreak of MERS in 2015, the Middle East respiratory syndrome, caused by a different coronavirus.
After South Korea reported on its first COVID-19 patient on January 20, the KDCA quickly recognized the importance of mass testing and accelerated an approval process that saw private companies churn out millions of tests in just a few weeks. .
When infections soared in the Daegu region in February and March, health authorities managed to contain the situation in April after aggressively mobilizing technological tools to trace contacts and enforce quarantines.
But that success was also a product of luck: Most of the infections in Daegu were related to a single church congregation. Health workers are now having a harder time tracking transmissions in the populous area of the capital, where the groups are popping up almost everywhere.
Ahn Young-joon / AP
In this July 21, 2020 file photo, workers wearing protective gear spray disinfectant as a precaution against a new coronavirus at a theater at the Sejong Center in Seoul, South Korea.
So far, South Korea has weathered its outbreak without lockdowns, but Sunday’s decision to raise distancing restrictions to the highest “Level 3” could possibly shut down hundreds of thousands of non-essential businesses across the country.
That might be for the best, said Yoo Eun-sun, who is struggling to pay rent for three small music tutoring academies she runs in Incheon and Siheung, also near Seoul, amid student shortages and intermittent closures.
“What parents would send their kids to piano lessons,” unless the broadcasts slow down quickly and decisively, he said.
Yoo also feels that the government’s median approach to social distancing, which has focused on specific business activities while keeping the broader part of the economy open, has imposed an unfair financial burden on companies like hers.
“Whether it’s tutoring academies, gyms, yoga studios or karaoke bars, the same set of businesses is getting hit over and over again,” he said.
“How long could we continue?”
