hankyoreh

Amid concerns that there will be a shortage of beds for severe COVID-19 cases following the continued spread of the contagion, two medical workers at Seoul Medical Center in the city’s Jungnang District monitor the beds of those with serious COVID-19 symptoms. (Yonhap News)

Just 17 days after Korea initiated its gradual return to normal routines, called “living with COVID-19,” the number of COVID-19 patients in serious or critical condition has risen above 500 people and intensive care units in Seoul are now above 80% of capacity.

The government had previously said the current medical system could handle up to 5,000 new COVID-19 cases per day after easing disease restrictions, but the strain on the intensive care system has proven that wrong. Experts say the government exacerbated the situation by focusing too much on the situation in other countries and failing to take precautions for breakthrough infections among the elderly, including those living in nursing homes.

Korea’s Central Disease Control Headquarters said there were 522 COVID-19 patients in serious or critical condition at the beginning of the day on Wednesday. This is the first time the number of serious and critical cases has exceeded 500, the number the government has said can be effectively managed. Amid a rapid increase in serious and critical cases in the greater Seoul area, capacity utilization at intensive care units (ICU) specializing in COVID-19 patients in Seoul rose to 80.6% of capacity on Wednesday, the first time it’s been above 80%.

Capacity at ICUs in the greater Seoul area (Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province) was reported as being 76.7%. For several days now, that figure has hovered above 75%, a threshold which the government has described as the “circuit breaker” for taking emergency measures.

The same day, Korea reported 3,187 new cases of COVID-19 — the second time the country has seen more than 3,000 cases. The highest daily tally reported so far was 3,270 on Sept. 25, when more Koreans were on the road during the extended Chuseok holiday, shortly before the gradual return to normal routines. The authorities believe the caseload is rising because breakthrough infections are increasing among elderly people, including those residing in nursing homes, as the preventive power of their inoculations wanes over time, and because there has been more interpersonal contact since the return to normal routines.

While the government said several times before easing regulations that the current medical system could handle up to 5,000 daily cases of COVID-19, the number of serious and critical cases has already exceeded 500 even though the caseload is only around 3,000, and hospital capacity is being stretched. That has prompted experts to criticize the government for its faulty predictions and sluggish response.

“The government took all age groups into account when calculating the case fatality rate and the rate of cases that become serious. But the serious case rate has risen higher than expected since the disease has recently been spreading among the high-risk population of older people — those aged 60 and above. The government ought to have hurried to provide booster shots to high-risk groups,” said Kim Tark, an infectious diseases specialist at Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital in Bucheon.

“The government is largely to blame for moving forward with the return to normal routines without making preparations at infectious disease wards and in the system for transporting patients in serious or critical condition. The current increase in the caseload represents the manifest failure of government policy in not quickly administering booster shots to prevent breakthrough infections among older populations and in not taking measures to protect unvaccinated teenagers,” said Kim Yoon, a professor of health policy and management at Seoul National University College of Medicine.

“Considering that the fourth wave [of COVID-19] was continuing in the greater Seoul area, the government ought to have waited to resume normal routines until the wards and transportation system for critical cases and at-home care were established and until considerable work had been done on the hospital bed mobilization order. Those preparations weren’t adequate. Given our experience with previous outbreaks, the government ought to have been aware that [such measures] couldn’t be done in a brief period of time, but the situation has repeated itself,” said Eom Joong-sik, a professor of infectious disease at Gachon University Gil Medical Center.

Given these circumstances, the disease control authorities plan to decide whether to move ahead with the return to normal routines or backtrack after assessing the risk level of the COVID-19 pandemic each week. The authorities explained that the key indicators will be capacity utilization of ICUs, the incidence of cases on a seven-day rolling average relative to the medical system’s capacity in terms of hospital beds, the number of new patients in serious or critical condition over the week, the percentage of patients who are 60 years or older, and the booster vaccination rate for people aged 60 and above and other at-risk groups.

The Central Disease Control Headquarters and the Central Disaster Management Headquarters will use those indicators to assess the COVID-19 risk level for the week on a five-point scale (very low, low, medium, high, and very high) in consultation with a committee of experts on infectious disease control and medical care.

By Lee Jae-ho and Park Jun-yong, staff reporters

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]