South Korea seemed to be fighting the coronavirus: Fast step up testing, contact tracking and quarantine efforts paid off as it weathered an early outbreak without the economic pain of a lockdown. But a deadly resurgence has reached new heights over Christmas week, prompting a search for how the nation was sleepwalking in crisis.
The 1,241 infections on Christmas Day were the largest daily increase. Another 1,132 cases were reported on Saturday, bringing South Korea’s caseload to 55,902.
More than 15,000 have been added in the past 15 days alone. Another 221 deaths in the same period, the deadliest trajectory, took the death toll to 793.
As the numbers continue to rise, the shock to people’s livelihoods increases and public confidence in government diminishes. Officials could decide to ramp up social distance measures to the maximum on Sunday after weeks of resistance.
Tighter restrictions may be inevitable as transmissions have outpaced efforts to expand hospital capacity.
KIM HONG-JI / REUTERS
In the greater Seoul region, more facilities have been designated for COVID-19 treatment, and dozens of general hospitals have been ordered to allocate more ICUs to virus patients. Hundreds of troops have been deployed to help track contracts.
At least four patients died at home or on long-term care this month pending admission, said Kwak Jin, an official with the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. The agency said 299 of the 16,577 active patients were in a serious or critical condition.
“Our hospital system is not going to collapse, but the crowds among COVID-19 patients have significantly hindered our response,” said Choi Won Suk, an infectious disease professor at Korea University Ansan Hospital, west of Seoul.
Choi said the government should have done more to prepare hospitals for a winter wave.
“We have patients with all kinds of serious illnesses in our ICUs and they can’t share any space with COVID-19 patients, so it’s difficult,” said Choi. “It’s the same medical staff who have been fighting the virus all these months. There’s a build-up of fatigue.”
Critics say President Moon Jae-in’s administration became complacent after quickly curtailing the outbreak in the southeastern city of Daegu this spring.
Recent weeks have highlighted the risks of putting economic concerns above public health when vaccines are at least months away. Officials had relaxed social distance rules to the lowest level in October, allowing risky venues such as clubs and karaoke rooms to reopen, although experts warned of a viral surge in winter when people spend longer hours indoors.
Jaehun Jung, a professor of preventive medicine at Gachon University College of Medicine in Incheon, said he expects infections to gradually slow down over the next two weeks.
The quiet streets and long lines that meander around test stations in Seoul, which temporarily offer free tests to everyone, regardless of whether they have symptoms or obvious reasons to suspect infections, demonstrate a return of public alertness after months of pandemic fatigue.
Officials are also intervening in private social gatherings until Jan. 3, closing ski resorts, banning hotels from selling more than half of their rooms, and setting fines for restaurants if they accept groups of five or more people.
Still, lowering transmissions to early November levels of 100 to 200 a day would be unrealistic, Jung said, anticipating the daily figure to settle about 300 to 500 cases.
The higher baseline may necessitate a heightened social distance until vaccines are rolled out – a dire prospect for low-income workers and the self-employed who run the country’s service sector, the part of the economy that has been most damaged by the virus.
“The government must do everything it can to secure adequate supplies and increase vaccine delivery as soon as possible,” said Jung.
South Korea plans to secure about 86 million doses of vaccines next year, which would be enough for 46 million people out of a population of 51 million. The first deliveries, namely AstraZeneca vaccines produced by a local manufacturing partner, are expected to be delivered in February and March. Officials plan to vaccinate 60% to 70% of the population around November.
There is disappointment that the shots are not coming sooner, although officials have insisted South Korea can afford a wait and see as the outbreak is not as severe as in America or Europe.
South Korea’s previous success can be attributed to its experience combating a 2015 outbreak of MERS, the Middle East respiratory syndrome caused by another coronavirus.
After South Korea reported its first COVID-19 patient on Jan. 20, the KDCA quickly recognized the importance of mass testing and accelerated an approval process with private companies producing millions of tests in just a few weeks.
When infections in the Daegu region soared in February and March, health authorities managed to contain the situation in April after deploying aggressive technology tools to track down contacts and enforce quarantines.
But that success was also a product of luck – most of the infections in Daegu were related to a single congregation. Health workers now have a much harder time tracking transmissions in the densely populated main area, where clusters are popping up just about everywhere.
South Korea has weathered its outbreak without lockdowns so far, but a decision on Sunday to raise restrictions remotely to the highest “Tier-3” could potentially shut down hundreds of thousands of non-essential businesses across the country.
That could be for the best, said Yoo Eun-sun, who is struggling to pay rent for three small music tuition academies she runs in Incheon and Siheung, also near Seoul, amid a lack of students and supplies. shutdowns.
“What parents would send their kids to piano lessons,” unless broadcasts cut down quickly and decisively, she said.
Yoo also believes that the government’s mediocre approach to social distance, which focused on specific business activities while keeping the wider part of the economy open, has placed an unfair financial burden on companies like hers.
“Whether it’s tutoring at academies, gyms, yoga studies, or karaoke, the same range of companies is hit over and over again,” she said. “How long can we go on?”