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A nurse at Gachon University Gil Medical Center in Incheon’s Namdong District organizes a COVID-19 patient’s belongings while donning a Level D protective suit on Tuesday. (Yonhap News)

As the number of severe and critical COVID-19 patients in South Korea reaches historic highs, it is approaching the threshold that the government has named the level that it can stably manage.

With the number of severe cases rising especially swiftly in the greater Seoul area, the government held an emergency meeting with the directors of tertiary hospitals in the region to ask them to quickly establish sickbeds and increase the efficiency of their use.

The Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH) announced on Tuesday that the number of severe and critical COVID-19 patients in South Korea stood at 495 as of the end of the previous day.

The number set a new daily record, surpassing the previous high of 485 three days earlier on Saturday.

The South Korean government previously stated that it would be able to stably manage up to 500 severe and critical patients under the current healthcare system. The latest number shows that those cases are already nearing the threshold — 16 days after the adoption of measures for a gradual return to everyday life.

Dedicated intensive care sickbed availability is also precarious.

As of 5 pm on Monday, 523 of the 687 dedicated beds for severe and critical COVID-19 cases were in use in the greater Seoul area (including the cities of Seoul and Incheon and Gyeonggi Province), giving an occupancy rate of 76.1%.

That rate was down by 0.3 percentage points from 76.4% the day before, but still exceeded the 75% rate named by the government as a threshold for putting an emergency plan into effect.

Disease control authorities attributed the rapid recent rise in severe COVID-19 cases to a combination of breakthrough infections and confirmed cases among older populations.

The average daily number of severe and critical patients stood at 447 for the second week of November, up by 22% from the week before. That total included 367 patients aged 60 and up, 62 aged 40 to 59, and 18 aged 39 or younger.

“The number of confirmed COVID-19 patients aged 60 and up rose from 2,288 in the first week of October to 4,434 in the first week of November, and the numbers of severe and critical cases and deaths in the 60-and-older age group has climbed alongside it,” explained Lee Sang-won, head of the CDCH epidemiological investigation and analysis task force.

“The rate of non-vaccination or incomplete vaccination among the population aged 60 and older is very low — only around 8%,” he observed.

“But an analysis of the 452 COVID-19 patients who died between Oct. 3 and Nov. 6 showed that 61.7% of them were not fully vaccinated,” he added.

A government analysis of 523 COVID-19 patients who died in the past five weeks found that 338 of them (64.6%) were not fully vaccinated, while 185 (35.4%) were fully vaccinated.

The numbers show the vaccination is clearly effective at preventing infections, but also that its effects wane over time.

An investigation by the CDCH found a continued increase in the rate of breakthrough infections among all confirmed COVID-19 patients aged 12 and older. The rate rose from 26.3% in the first week of October to 31.3% in the second week, 37.9% in the third week, 47.3% in the fourth week, and 56.0% in the first week of November.

By Lee Jae-ho, staff reporter

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