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Healthcare workers transfer a confirmed COVID-19 patient to a hospital bed at the Seoul Medical Center on March 14. (Yonhap News)

The South Korean government is predicting that the number of new COVID-19 cases will peak by next week at the latest, with new infections expected to start declining around March 23. It’s forecasting that this wave of infections will peak at around 370,000 confirmed cases per day, with the number of critically ill patients reaching up to 2,120 between the end of March and early April, which will likely put further pressure on the country’s healthcare system.

Compiling COVID-19 prediction models by researchers in the country, Korea’s disease control authorities announced Monday that the country is expected to record more than 320,000 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday (with five out of seven forecasts predicting so), with the daily caseload expected to begin to decline around March 23 (with five of six forecasts predicting so).

“As for the peak period of the spread, it was broadly predicted to be from March 16 to March 22, and the scale of the spread was also suggested to vary from 300,000 to 370,000,” Jeong Eun-kyeong, commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), said at a briefing on Monday.

Son Young-rae, head of the social strategy team at the Central Disaster Management Headquarters added, “The peak of the spread will probably be this week or next week at the latest.”

According to Central Disease Control Headquarters figures announced Monday morning, the number of new confirmed cases as of the end of the day Sunday stood at 309,790.

The number of new daily cases over the past week, starting March 8, was as follows: 202,711 → 342,433 → 327,541 → 282,978 → 383,659 → 350,188 → 309,790.

Disease control authorities predict that, after an initial increase in cases by around 10%-20% from current levels, the daily case numbers will finally start coming down.

However, even once the crest of the wave has passed, the number of new daily confirmed cases may not immediately see a sharp decline.

“[The number of new daily cases] is expected to decline within the coming two weeks. Compared to other countries, since Korea has stuck to a strategy to curb the spread [of the virus], the decline will happen gradually,” said Hong Yun-chul, chair of The Korean Society for Preventive Medicine.

Moreover, the peak in the number of critically ill patients is expected to be reached after the end of March. Based on prediction models by domestic researchers, the KDCA is predicting that the number of critically ill patients will increase to more than 1,800 around March 23, and that the numbers will be between 1,650 and 2,120 at the end of this month and early next month.

The number of critically ill patients hit a record high on Monday with 1,158, meaning that the number of critically ill patients could nearly double in the coming weeks.

For this reason, it is expected that Korea’s healthcare system, particularly its intensive care beds, will be overloaded by the end of this month. The nation's intensive care bed utilization rate soared from 31% in the third week of February to 61.9% on average as of the second week of March. As of Monday, there were 2,751 beds available for critically ill COVID-19 patients nationwide with 1,839 beds in use, meaning that 66.8% of such beds were occupied.

“It is expected that the number of critically ill patients will continue to increase to around 2,000 by the end of this month or early next month. We are preparing a response system accordingly,” Son said.

Some experts are also calling for oral COVID-19 treatments, such as the Paxlovid pills, to be prescribed more actively to reduce the burden on the medical system due to the increase in critically ill patients.

“Currently, when medical staff try to prescribe oral therapies to patients, there are often fears of side-effects,” said Kim Shin-woo, a professor of infectious disease at Kyungpook National University Hospital.

“Because medical staff have to ask patients many questions [before they can prescribe the medication], it’s not being widely used. There are some hospitals that use [such treatments] a lot and there are others that don’t,” Kim added.

“We need to create a situation where we use such treatments in the field more actively,” according to Kim.

Meanwhile, the government has also adjusted its standards for COVID-19 financial support.

The financial support, which has been paid out differently depending on the number of hospitalized and quarantined persons per household, will be set to 150,000 won for households with two or more people and 100,000 won for single-person households, roughly US$120 and US$80 respectively.

In addition, the upper limit of daily support for paid leave expenses will be reduced by about 40% from 73,000 won to 45,000 won.

By Park June-yong, staff reporter; Jang Hyeon-eun, staff reporter

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