South Korea chooses not to toughen rules amid third wave



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myeongdong street seoul, south korea

The street in Myoung-dong, a popular tourist district in central Seoul, appears empty on Sunday amid a resurgence of new coronavirus cases. (Yonhap)

SEOUL – The South Korean government once again challenged its own COVID-19 plan and decided not to move to a higher level of social distancing despite recent metrics supporting more intensive intervention.

In announcing the decision to keep the capital area under the current Tier 2 distancing measures, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said at the emergency press conference on Sunday that “excessive controls will lead to other types of losses that they will finally be suffered by the people. ” He continued: “This is not something that remains fixed, but may be subject to change as the situation evolves.”

Chung, who chairs the government’s response headquarters to COVID-19, admitted that Korea is now facing “the most serious crisis since the first peak in March.”

“Now it is the people, and not the government, who must lead the fight against COVID-19, taking daily measures to counter the risks,” he said. “Only then can we triumph against the virus.”

The count of new COVID-19 infections in Korea fell to 450 on Sunday after recording three consecutive days out of more than 500, as the number of tests decreased over the weekend.

The nationwide test positivity rate rose to more than 3 percent on the same day, the highest since the summer resurgence. The positivity rate, the percentage of people who test positive among everyone who gets tested, has hovered above 2 percent for the past few days.

Experts note that the government did not comply with its social distancing plan, which outlines the criteria for easing and tightening restrictions based on considerations such as case rates and other epidemiological factors.

Under already softened guidelines that went into effect earlier this month, Korea qualifies for the second most restrictive tier. The average of seven days of new cases related to community transmission per day has registered more than 400 during the past week.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Eom Joong-sik of Gachon University Gil Hospital in Incheon said that Korea has made such commitments to the COVID-19 rules too many times. Korea has a history of rolling back restrictions in favor of economic stability, despite failing to meet the necessary benchmarks.

“When the government moved to the least restrictive level of social distancing in October, Korea’s COVID-19 metrics were not eligible for it,” he said.

He said that the rate of increase in the number of cases and the rate of positivity showed an alarming trajectory. “Cases will probably continue to increase over the next week,” he said. “There is no way around it than to reinforce mitigation measures not only until Suneung, but also for the rest of the winter.”

Government officials have said the upcoming Suneung, the annual college entrance exam that tens of thousands of high school seniors are expected to take, scheduled for next Thursday, is the target period to maintain mid-level restrictions. current. Currently, Korea bans indoor dining after 9pm and limits the operation of nightlife businesses.

Experts warn that the winter wave could be “different from anything the country has experienced so far in the pandemic.”

“The initial wave in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province was linked to a single community, so we knew who we had to test and isolate, and it took us a month to contain the epidemic. The second wave in the summer took about two months to subside, as a higher proportion, almost 70 percent, of the cases discovered were by community transmission, ”said Dr. Lee Jacob, an infectious disease specialist, during Saturday’s round table organized by the National Academy of Medicine. from Korea.

“The latest wave of infections is expected to take even longer to subside because we cannot specify where the cases are coming from. This trend shows the prevalence of COVID-19 in communities, ”he said.

As hospitalizations increase, beds are in short supply again.

As of Saturday, 5,759 COVID-19 patients were being treated in isolation in hospitals or other healthcare facilities. This is more than three times the number a month ago, when the number of isolated patients was around 1,600.

Data on Saturday showed that of the 4,362 COVID-19 beds in the country, more than half, or 2,411, were occupied. The total number of beds available in the intensive care unit that can accommodate COVID-19 patients was only 69. Public physicians at the National Medical Center predicted in the press conference on November 24 that the remaining beds in the ICU they would be sold out in the next week.

“During the previous peak in August and September, hospitals were overloaded as the number of isolated patients approached 5,000,” said Dr. Kim Woo-joo, infectious disease specialist at Korea University Medical Center in Guro. , south of Seoul, warning that medical care systems were about to break down.

“The only way to slow the spread and avoid an imminent collapse in healthcare is to keep the sidewalks in place. How the government can protect suffering small businesses and vulnerable workers while social distancing lasts will be key to surviving the long COVID-19 winter. “

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