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Members of the Central Disaster Management Headquarters (CDMH) hold a meeting at the Government Complex in Sejong on July 20. (Yonhap News)

Located on the seventh floor of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) building in the Sejong Government Complex, the Central Disaster Management Headquarters (CDMH) is a dedicated organization for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The workday in this office begins at 5 am. Employees tally the number of new daily diagnoses from 12 am the night before ahead of preparations for the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCHQ) meeting, which is presided over by the prime minister at 8:30 am.

Having previously occupied leftover spaces on the MOHW building’s fourth to sixth floors early on in the pandemic, the CDMH’s scattered 254 staff members were consolidated in one place after the decision on July 7 to establish it as a permanent organization. Employees with MOHW’s population policy office were relocated to a nearby private building -- signaling preparations for a long-term battle with the virus.

The morning of July 20 marked six months after South Korea diagnosed its first case of COVID-19. Inside its office -- which was being opened to the press for the first time -- the “CDMH” people were sitting around a conference table in their yellow jackets, including General Manager No Hong-in, Yoon Tae-ho, leader of the disease control team, and Seo Yeong-rae, who heads the strategy and planning team. Behind their masks, their faces showed signs of both relief and seriousness. As of midnight, the number of new community infections diagnosed that day stood at four, the lowest number in the 73 days since just one was recorded on May 8.

But another graph on the COVID-19 daily situation board showed a stark rise in diagnoses among international arrivals. That same day, imported cases accounted for 22 of the 26 new cases. Son explained, “If the number of imported patients continues to rise, that raises issues in terms of a greater burden on the South Korean healthcare system and the management of people in quarantine, so we’re discussing intermediate- to long-term response measures.”

In conjunction with the Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH) at the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), the CDMH has been working to stem the virus’ spread. It went into operation on Jan. 27 -- a week after the first domestic patient was recorded -- as the infectious disease crisis level was raised from “caution” to “alert.” Early on in the outbreak, it formulated special transport measures for overseas Koreans in Wuhan and responded to a major outbreak traced to the Shincheonji religious sect; more recently, it has focused on developing guidelines for everyday disease prevention. The CDMH staff comprised as many as 400 people at one point amid a sharp increase in cases in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province.

It was a period of urgency, with last-minute revisions made in the elevator on the way to the daily morning briefings. The “CDMH people” have left desks clear throughout the office, explaining that “a major outbreak could happen again at any moment.”

Disease control officials see it as a major achievement that they slowed the virus’ spread without regional lockdowns and other coercive measures. They’re also unanimous in the view that everyday disease prevention practices must be ingrained into the culture and institutions. They also insist on efforts to reduce fatigue among healthcare workers.

“It feels like we’re about 10 kilometers into a [42km] marathon,” KCDC Director Jung Eun-kyeong said that day in describing her feelings about the response over the past six months. “But it’s like we’ve been running that 10km at a 100m dash pace.”

Jung also stressed that it was “time to create a response system that is sustainable and efficient.”

“In particular, we need to address the issue of inadequate response capabilities for severe patients, while establishing systems so that social distancing can become a part of daily life, including paid leave and telecommuting,” she said. People in the “economically active” population segment from ages 20 to 59 account for 70% of the 13,762 total patients diagnosed to date.

* The Central Disaster Management Headquarters (CDMH) and Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH) are organizations currently being operated to respond to COVID-19, the former under the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) and the latter under the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCHQ) is a pan-governmental response organization chaired by the prime minister.

By Choi Ha-yan, staff reporter

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