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On Sunday, when a record-breaking number of serious or critically ill patients was recorded, medical workers transfer a patient from an ambulance to a dedicated COVID-19 hospital in Seoul’s Jungnang District. (Yonhap News)

The South Korean government plans to acquire an additional 7,000 sickbeds for COVID-19 patients by next month, including over 1,500 for patients with severe to critical symptoms.

As part of its plan, it intends to exclusively task public hospitals such as the National Medical Center and Seoul Medical Center with the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

These measures were included in a plan announced at a briefing Wednesday morning by Minister of Health and Welfare Kwon Deok-cheol, who serves as first vice director of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters.

“By the end of January [2022], we intend to have acquired an additional 6,944 hospital beds, including 1,578 for patients with severe symptoms,” Kwon said.

With roughly 2,250 beds already set to be acquired by the end of December through administrative orders and voluntary participation, the announcement means that around 9,200 additional beds are to be made available through the end of next month.

The government estimates that the additional beds can be made available as early as mid-January. They would add the equivalent of 59% of the 15,500 beds currently in operation.

As part of these measures, beds are to be cleared by the two medical centers, along with veterans and workers’ compensation hospitals, to make a total of 499 sickbeds available to COVID-19 patients.

Another 308 critical care beds are to be acquired through the cooperation of national university hospitals. The government further plans to invoke an administrative order increasing the critical care bed mobilization rate by 1% for other tertiary hospitals to make an additional 300 beds available. A further 750 beds or so are to be acquired through additional special sickbed provision.

“Even if we presume the same severe symptom rate of 2.5% that was observed in late November before the full-scale administration of booster shots began, we will be able to manage repeated new daily caseloads of 10,000 patients,” Kwon said.

The government also plans to make more healthcare staff available to match the increase in sickbeds.

Operation of the new beds will require a total of 104 physicians and 1,107 nurses and other medical workers. To meet this need, military and public health physicians beyond the number considered to represent an essential workforce are to be deployed to hospitals treating patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms.

According to the Central Disease Control Headquarters, a total of 7,456 new confirmed COVID-19 cases were counted by the end of the day Tuesday. A total of 1,063 patients were listed as being in severe or critical condition, which was the highest number since the pandemic began.

Seventy-eight COVID-19 patients died Tuesday, bringing the cumulative death toll in South Korea to 4,906.

By Park Jun-yong, staff reporter

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