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People wait to be tested for COVID-19 outside the Songpa District Community Health Center on Monday morning. (Yonhap News)

In the week since Nov. 1, when South Korea took the first step toward returning to normal routines amid the pandemic, the number of serious, critical, and fatal cases of COVID-19 increased among older populations and the unvaccinated. The daily caseload is expected to further rise due to Halloween and the easing of infectious disease prevention and control measures.

“The daily average of serious and critical cases in the last week [Oct. 30-Nov. 6] was 365, which was 32 more than the previous week. People aged 60 and above accounted for 79.2% of those cases, showing that the majority are occurring among older populations,” said Park Hyang, head of the disease control supervision group at Korea’s Central Disaster Management Headquarters, in a briefing on Monday.

“A total of 126 deaths were reported over the past week, with 122 aged 60 or above. That represented a considerable increase from 72 deaths in that age group in the previous week,” Park said.

When broken down by age group, the number of deaths was found to increase with age. There were 80 deaths among people aged 80 and above, 26 among people in their 70s, and 16 among people in their 60s.

The seven-day moving average of COVID-19 cases, which serves as the leading indicator of a surge in serious cases and fatalities, also rose above 2,000 for the first time in five weeks. That issue was brought up by Lee Seung-woo, a second coordinating officer at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, during a meeting at the agency’s headquarters on Monday.

“Our campaign to control COVID-19 remains challenging. We had an average daily caseload of 2,133 last week; cases are increasing among children, teenagers and older populations. The average daily caseload last week rose above 2,000 for the first time in five weeks, since the daily average hit a record of 2,488 in the fifth week of September,” Lee said.

COVID-19’s reproduction number, also called R0 (“R naught”), currently stands at 1.20 — the highest it has been since mid-July. That number has been rising for the past three weeks, showing that the COVID-19 pandemic is spreading in the country.

“The daily caseload is expected to increase this week and next as a result of our easing of social distancing measures last week and Halloween gatherings,” Park said.

It’s also becoming clearer that new cases and fatalities are concentrated among the unvaccinated. Among the 85,998 confirmed cases of COVID-19 that have occurred in those aged 18 and older over the past eight weeks, 72.5% occurred in those who were not fully vaccinated — meaning they were either unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated. And among the 452 people who died of COVID-19 over the past five weeks, 71.9% were not fully vaccinated.

The rising caseload has also caused hospital bed occupancy rates in the greater Seoul area to rise to nearly 70%. Hospitals that treat COVID-19 patients with mild or moderate symptoms reported occupancy rates of 78.1% in Seoul and 81.7% in Gyeonggi Province, while hospitals treating severe cases have reached occupancies of 65.5% in Seoul and 66.9% in Gyeonggi Province.

The government is seeking to use intensive care units more efficiently by linking them with wards treating semi-severe cases. It’s also exploring the option of treating critically ill patients in the greater Seoul area at wards in nearby provinces.

The government has already lined up enough hospital beds to handle an average daily caseload of 5,000 patients. Officials think that once an executive order made on Friday to mobilize hospital beds in the greater Seoul area is fully implemented in four weeks, the country will be able to handle 7,000 daily cases.

On Wednesday, infectious disease authorities said that they’re giving serious consideration to reducing the term between the initial vaccination and booster shots from six to five months not only for workers and residents of nursing homes but also for members of the general public aged 60 and above.

By Kim Ji-hoon and Park Jun-yong, staff reporters

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