Director Youngmi Ji, briefing on COVID-19 outbreak trends and response
“It’s not at the level of raising the crisis level… We’ll manage it with the current medical system.”
“COVID-19 peaks next week… increase slows slightly last week”
“Public hospitals operate night and weekend fever clinics…disperse mild cases”
“Vaccines also help ordinary people…infections reduced by one-third when vaccinated”
On the 21st, Director of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency Ji Young-mi emphasized, “The current COVID-19 pandemic is not a crisis situation like the pandemic of 2020-2022, but rather part of the process of COVID-19 becoming endemic.”
Commissioner Ji Young-mi held a briefing on the ‘COVID-19 outbreak trends and response measures’ at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency building in Osong-eup, Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do on this day and said, “This summer’s outbreak is not at a level that requires us to respond by implementing social distancing measures again or raising the crisis level, and we have determined that it can be managed within the current medical system.”
◆“COVID-19 peaks next week… growth rate slows somewhat”
According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the number of hospitalized patients under surveillance at 220 hospitals in the second week of this month was 1,366, the highest this year. The summer COVID-19 outbreak is expected to increase at a similar level to the peak of previous years until the end of this month and then gradually decrease thereafter.
Commissioner Ji said, “We predict that COVID-19 will peak next week or so, but the actual number of cases may be somewhat lower than expected,” and “Thanks to the public’s good adherence to quarantine and prevention guidelines, the increase last week slowed somewhat.”
This outbreak is attributed to the relatively low vaccination rate last winter when COVID-19 was not prevalent. In fact, the COVID-19 vaccination rate for people aged 65 and older last winter was only 41.3%. In addition, the continuously increasing prevalence of the newly emerged KP.3 variant, lack of indoor ventilation due to air conditioning use in the summer, and increased movement during the vacation season also had a complex effect.
However, the cumulative COVID-19 fatality rate from January 2020 to August of last year was low at 0.1%. The domestic COVID-19 fatality rate last year after the Omicron mutation was 0.05%, similar to the seasonal flu. In particular, the fatality rate for those under 60 was low at 0.02% or less. The fatality rate for those in their 70s was 0.16%, and for those over 80, it was 0.73%.
Commissioner Ji said, “Unlike the crisis situations of 2020~2022, viruses with lower severity and mortality rates are spreading,” and “The current medical response and situation are not critical.” He continued, “The government is doing its utmost to minimize health damage by protecting high-risk groups such as the elderly and those with underlying diseases.”
◆Emergency Room Visits 2,240 → 11,627… “Public Hospitals Operate Fever Clinics”
The government has decided to strengthen the management of infection-vulnerable facilities such as nursing hospitals, long-term care facilities, mental health promotion facilities, and welfare facilities for the disabled in order to focus on protecting high-risk groups. This is a plan to strengthen patient management and monitoring and infection control at public health centers from the early stage of patient occurrence through the operation of a joint response team of local governments.
In preparation for the increase in COVID-19 patients, a medical response system has also been established to ensure timely treatment according to severity. Recently, the number of COVID-19 patients visiting the emergency room increased from 2,240 in June to 11,627 last month, with both moderate and mild cases increasing.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to establish measures to disperse mild COVID-19 patients visiting emergency rooms and to continuously monitor the situation. In particular, it plans to secure spare beds at public hospitals that were previously operated as COVID-19 specialized hospitals and establish a cooperative system for the hospitalization of COVID-19 patients.
In addition, it was decided to prepare response plans for each scenario in case of an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations. Depending on the situation of the occurrence of critically ill patients, a joint response situation room will be established at the National Medical Center to monitor the occurrence of critically ill patients and secure and adjust hospital beds.
We plan to operate state-designated hospitalization treatment beds and emergency treatment beds, including regional infectious disease hospitals, and designate additional treatment beds for severely ill patients when necessary. We will also operate night and weekend fever clinics at public hospitals.
Yoo Bo-young, director of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Disease Policy Division, said, “We analyzed that many COVID-19 patients with fever visit emergency rooms at night,” and “We plan to receive a list of hospitals that can provide night and weekend treatment from local medical centers and other public hospitals by this week.” She added, “We will guide mild COVID-19 patients who visit emergency rooms so that they can be transferred to public hospitals.”
◆Additional introduction of 177,000 doses of treatment on the 26th… “Supply will be stable”
We are also pursuing the supply of stable treatments and diagnostic kits. In relation to this, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency has invested 326.8 billion won in reserve funds to secure additional COVID-19 treatments for 260,000 people. Approximately 60,000 treatments have been introduced and distributed to local sites since the 15th, and an additional 177,000 treatments will be introduced on the 26th. We planned to introduce 140,000 doses next week, but we have secured more than that amount earlier than planned.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said, “The supply issue will stabilize as additional supplies will be available to pharmacies and other locations next week,” and “The additional supplies secured this time are expected to be supplied stably to high-risk groups until October. Starting in October, we plan to quickly pursue health insurance listing with the relevant ministries so that the treatment can be supplied within the general medical system.”
The supply of COVID-19 self-testing kits is also being increased. It was confirmed that 3.25 million self-testing kits were produced and distributed by 10 domestic manufacturers from the 1st to the 16th. This production performance is 28 times more than the 116,000 units in July and 3 times more than the 1.1 million units in April, which was the highest production this year.
Lee Nam-hee, director of the Medical Device Safety Bureau at the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, said, “Thanks to the rapid expansion of production of self-test kits by domestic manufacturers, we have secured sufficient inventory, and based on this, they are currently being distributed to consumers through online retailers and convenience stores in accordance with market conditions,” adding, “The supply and demand instability at some pharmacies is also stabilizing.”
We will also introduce the new COVID-19 JN. 1 vaccine, which is effective against recent prevalent variants such as JN. 1, and conduct seasonal vaccinations for 2024-2025 from October. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency has secured 7.55 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and plans to vaccinate free of charge about 6.33 million people in high-risk groups such as those aged 65 or older and immunocompromised people. The plan is to increase the vaccination rate by administering it at the same time as the flu vaccine.
“It is much more helpful for the general public to get vaccinated,” said Lim Sook-young, director of the Health Safety and Prevention Bureau at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. “If you get vaccinated, the risk of infection is reduced by a third compared to not getting vaccinated, the risk of hospitalization is reduced by a quarter, and the risk of severe symptoms is reduced by a fifth.”
Commissioner Ji emphasized, “In the future, COVID-19 will become a chronic infectious disease like influenza,” and “The government will also actively respond to this summer’s epidemic based on its experience responding to the characteristics of infectious diseases and epidemic patterns during the COVID-19 epidemic period.”
[세종=뉴시스]
2024-08-21 22:10:31