SEOUL, South Korea (PA) – South Korea seemed to be winning the fight against coronavirus: its rapid intensification of testing, contact tracking and quarantine efforts paid off when it suffered an early outbreak without the economic pain of blockage. But a deadly renaissance reached new heights during the Christmas week, prompting the soul’s search for how the nation entered a crisis.
The 1,241 Christmas infections accounted for the largest daily increase. Another 1,132 cases were reported on Saturday, bringing the number of South Korean cases to 55,902.
Over 15,000 have been added in the last 15 days alone. Another 221 deaths in the same period, the deadliest, resulted in 793 deaths.
As the number increases, the shock on people’s livelihoods deepens and public confidence in government erodes. Officials could decide to increase social distancing measures to maximum levels on Sunday, after resisting for weeks.
Stricter restrictions could be unavoidable, as transmissions have outpaced efforts to expand the hospital’s capacity.
In the greater Seoul area, several COVID-19 treatment facilities have been designated and dozens of general hospitals have been ordered to allocate more ICUs to virus patients. Hundreds of soldiers were deployed to help track contracts.
At least four patients died at their homes or long-term care units while awaiting hospitalization this month, said Kwak Jin, an official with the Korea Agency for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency said 299 of the 16,577 active patients were in serious or critical condition.
“Our hospital system will not collapse, but the crushing of COVID-19 patients has significantly hampered our response,” said Choi Won Suk, a professor of infectious diseases at Ansan Korean University Hospital west of Seoul.
Choi said the government should have done more to prepare hospitals for a winter wave.
“We have patients with all sorts of serious illnesses in intensive care and they can’t share any space with patients with COVID-19, so it’s hard,” Choi said. “It’s the same medical staff fighting the virus during these months. There is an accumulation of fatigue. ”
Critics say President Moon Jae-in’s government has become pleased with the rapid containment of this spring’s outbreak, which was centered in the southeastern city of Daegu.
Recent weeks have highlighted the risks of putting economic concerns ahead of public health when vaccines are at least a few months away. Officials reduced social distance rules to the lowest in October, allowing high-risk venues, such as karaoke clubs and rooms, to reopen, although experts warned of a viral rise in the winter when people spend more time indoors.
Jaehun Jung, a professor of preventive medicine at Gachon University College of Medicine in Incheon, said he anticipates that the infections will gradually slow down over the next two weeks.
The quiet streets and long lines that surround the test stations in Seoul, which temporarily offer free tests to anyone, whether they have symptoms or clear reasons to suspect infections, demonstrate a return to public vigilance after months of pandemic fatigue.
Officials also limit private social gatherings until Jan. 3, shut down ski resorts, ban hotels from selling more than half of their rooms, and set restaurant fines if they accept groups of five or more.
However, the decrease in transmissions to the levels observed in early November – 100 to 200 per day – would be unrealistic, Jung said, anticipating that the daily figure would solve around 300 to 500 cases.
A higher basic level may require a closer social distance until the launch of vaccines – a terrible prospect for low-income and self-employed workers who run the country’s services sector, the part of the economy that the virus has most affected. more.
“The government should do everything to ensure sufficient supply and move the administration of vaccines to the earliest possible point,” Jung said.
South Korea plans to deliver about 86 million doses of vaccines next year, which would be enough to cover 46 million people out of a population of 51 million. The first supplies, which will be AstraZeneca vaccines produced by a local production partner, are expected to be delivered in February and March. Officials intend to complete vaccination between 60% and 70% of the population by around November.
There is disappointment that the shootings are not coming sooner, although officials have insisted that South Korea could allow an expected approach, as its outbreak is not as severe as in America or Europe.
South Korea’s previous success could be attributed to its experience in combating the 2015 outbreak of MERS, the respiratory syndrome in the Middle East, caused by a different coronavirus.
After South Korea reported its first COVID-19 patient on January 20, KDCA quickly recognized the importance of mass testing and accelerated an approval process that had private companies producing millions of tests in just a few weeks.
When infections increased in the Daegu region in February and March, health authorities managed to control the situation by April, after aggressively mobilizing technological tools to track contacts and impose quarantines.
But that success was also a product of luck – most of the infections in Daegu were related to a single church congregation. Healthcare workers now have a much more difficult time tracking transmissions in the populated area of the capital, where clusters appear almost everywhere.
South Korea has so far resisted its outbreak without blockages, but a decision on Sunday to lift distance restrictions on the highest “Tier-3” could probably block hundreds of thousands of non-essential companies across the country.
This could be best, said Yoo Eun-sun, who is struggling to pay rent for three small music guidance academies he runs in Incheon and Siheung, also near Seoul, amid a shortage of students. and closing and stopping stops.
“What parents would send their children to piano lessons,” unless transmissions drop quickly and decisively, she said.
Yoo also believes that the government’s median approach to social distancing, which has targeted specific business activities while maintaining a large share of the open economy, has placed an unfair financial burden on businesses like it.
“Whether it’s tutoring academies, gyms, yoga or karaoke studios, the same set of businesses is hit again and again,” she said. “How long can we continue?”