Weekly COVID-19 deaths in S. Korea surpass those during peak of 3rd wave

Posted on : 2021-11-22 17:51 KST Modified on : 2021-11-22 18:33 KST
The ICU occupancy rate in the greater Seoul area reached 81.5% as of 5 pm Saturday, while more than 800 people were waiting for hospital beds as of Sunday
The doors to Incheon Medical Center’s negative pressure room ward stand sealed closed on Nov. 15. (Yonhap News)
The doors to Incheon Medical Center’s negative pressure room ward stand sealed closed on Nov. 15. (Yonhap News)

South Korea’s weekly COVID-19 death total was 171 — a number higher than during the pandemic’s third wave, statistics show.

The burden on the greater Seoul area’s healthcare system has also been growing, with an all-time high of more than 800 patients in Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi Province who had been waiting for hospital beds for over a day as of Sunday.

According to figures released by the Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH) on Sunday, the number of daily deaths stood at 30 as of the end of the day Saturday. Over the seven-day period between Nov. 15 and 21, the number of daily deaths from COVID-19 exhibited an upward trend, with tallies for each day recorded as 12, 22, 21, 29, 28, 29, and 30, respectively.

The weekly death total was 171 — an average of 24.4 per day. This was five patients per day higher than the 19.4 average daily deaths between Nov. 8 and 14.

The seven-day total of COVID-19 deaths was higher than the peak reported during the third wave early this year. During the first full week of January 2021 (Jan. 4 to 10), when the third wave was at its height, a total of 163 patients died of COVID-19 in South Korea.

“Since October, the number of patients aged 60 and older has doubled,” noted Park Sung-hoon, a professor of pulmonary medicine at Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital. “The number of deaths has increased with the rise in elderly patients.”

“There may also be an impact from the rise in [total] COVID-19 confirmed cases since the shift toward ‘living with COVID,’” he added, referring to the easing of restrictions to allow for a gradual return to normal routines.

In the capital region, the burden on the healthcare system has been mounting, with difficulties assigning sickbeds to patients. The shortage of beds remains unresolved despite recent government measures, including a series of orders to ensure sickbed availability.

According to figures from the Central Disaster Management Headquarters, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Health and Welfare, a total of 804 people in the greater Seoul area had been waiting at least a day for a hospital bed as of the end of the day Saturday.

It’s the largest number since the pandemic began — with a particularly sharp rise over the period from Nov. 18 (423 patients) to Nov. 19 (520) and 20 (659).

Of the 804 patients, 478 had been waiting for at least two days, while 421 were aged 70 or older. The assigning of sickbeds appears to be taking longer with the nationwide daily total of confirmed COVID-19 cases surpassing 3,000 for four days running, including 3,120 new patients tallied Saturday. The greater Seoul area has accounted for a large majority of those cases.

“The concern is that we could see severe cases emerging as more and more people are put on standby to receive beds, which could delay necessary treatment,” Park said.

In the medical community, many are predicting that the bed shortage is likely to remain unresolved over the next two to three weeks, barring a drop in the number of new infections. They are also calling for more specialized isolation guidelines for critical care wards in order to ensure sickbed availability.

“It will be difficult for us to ensure enough sickbeds for severe patients in the short term unless we shift over to a treatment approach where we focus on using isolation facilities to quickly treat patients who developed symptoms a week to 10 days earlier while lowering the isolation standards for other patients," suggested Kim Sung-han, an infectious diseases specialist at Seoul's Asan Medical Center.

“This trend is going to continue until we’ve administered enough booster shots to bring the confirmed case numbers down,” he predicted.

Critical care beds for COVID-19 patients in the greater Seoul area are reaching saturation point. As of 5 pm on Saturday, the hospital bed occupancy rate was a combined 81.5% for the capital region — an area that includes Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon.

Seoul in particular had an 82.9% bed occupancy rate, with 286 critical care beds in use out of 345 total. Only 52 were still available for use.

Nationally, the occupancy rate for the 1,127 total dedicated COVID-19 critical care beds was roughly 67%. The South Korean government previously named an occupancy rate above 75% as one of its standards for invoking emergency measures.

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

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

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