South Korea, a Virus Success Story, Now Finds Its Model Unsustainable
By Choe Sang-Hun, Feb. 17, 2022, NYT
Critics have said the government’s new approach disadvantages underprivileged classes, like poor people who lack access to
medical care or other social services.
“It’s tantamount to letting the virus spread, rather than doing everything possible to contain its spread,” said Woo Seoc-kyun,
a representative of the Association of Physicians for Humanism,
a nationwide doctors’ group. “It threatens to reverse what we
have achieved so far through a tight management of the pandemic,
like keeping the number of fatalities low.”
The government said that even if the daily caseload soared, it
would still consider lifting restrictions further so that South
Korea could switch to a “life with Covid-19,” treating the disease
like “seasonal flu,” provided that the number of seriously ill
patients was kept under control.
Whether the government can keep up with the Omicron surge well
enough to make such a shift is still up for debate. This week,
the United States put South Korea on its “Do Not Travel” list.
The number of people being treated at home surged from 150,000
last week to 314,000 on Thursday and is expected to grow.
And so, too, could the number of seriously ill.
Jung Jae-hun, a professor of preventive medicine at Gachon University
in South Korea, estimated that the daily caseload would peak at over
200,000 and stay at that level throughout March. Another estimate,
by the government’s National Institute for Mathematical Sciences,
predicted as many as 360,000 new patients a day by early next month.
The authorities are preparing more hospital beds for the seriously
ill as a precaution. They are also asking neighborhood clinics to
pitch in to treat at-home patients remotely. Nearly half of the
workers at government-run health clinics in Gyeonggi Province,
which surrounds Seoul, called for an immediate relief from the
“extreme stress” caused by a crushing workload, according to a
recent survey.
Last week, South Korea retired its GPS monitoring tool used to
enforce isolation — a smartphone app that alerted health workers
when patients left home without permission. Many of the 60,000
workers who monitored those movements on the app will be now
redeployed to assist vulnerable patients at home, delivering
medicine and manning hotlines.
“There has been a bottleneck in putting calls through, as we were
trying to handle a sudden spike in patients,” said Lee Ki-il, a
senior disease-control coordinator.
The government’s changing attitude was not solely influenced by
data. An increasingly impatient public has also become more vocal
about the need for a new approach.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/world/asia/south-korea-covid-spread.html
"kico" wrote in message news:t08uip$od0$1...@dont-email.me...
South Korea, a Virus Success Story, Now Finds Its Model UnsustainableMaybe they should trot out the "hand sanitizer kids' like their brothers on the other side of the DMZ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDVNGJY3HUQ
South Korea, a Virus Success Story, Now Finds Its Model Unsustainable
David P. wrote:---------------------
South Korea, a Virus Success Story, Now Finds Its Model Unsustainable
By Choe Sang-Hun, Feb. 17, 2022, NYT
[ . . . . . ] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/world/asia/south-korea-covid-spread.html
Since the spread is not reduced but increased instead, it goes to show-------------------
that the people are not working together with themselves from spreading
to each other.
Hence, lifting of masking is going to hurt the people more. Seriously,
there is no need to lift the masking at all. This is because the mask is
very much the first line of defense of the virus, instead.
South Korea, a Virus Success Story, Now Finds Its Model Unsustainable
By Choe Sang-Hun, Feb. 17, 2022, NYT
Critics have said the government’s new approach disadvantages underprivileged classes, like poor people who lack access to
medical care or other social services.
“It’s tantamount to letting the virus spread, rather than doing everything possible to contain its spread,” said Woo Seoc-kyun,
a representative of the Association of Physicians for Humanism,
a nationwide doctors’ group. “It threatens to reverse what we
have achieved so far through a tight management of the pandemic,
like keeping the number of fatalities low.”
The government said that even if the daily caseload soared, it
would still consider lifting restrictions further so that South
Korea could switch to a “life with Covid-19,” treating the disease
like “seasonal flu,” provided that the number of seriously ill
patients was kept under control.
Whether the government can keep up with the Omicron surge well
enough to make such a shift is still up for debate. This week,
the United States put South Korea on its “Do Not Travel” list.
The number of people being treated at home surged from 150,000
last week to 314,000 on Thursday and is expected to grow.
And so, too, could the number of seriously ill.
Jung Jae-hun, a professor of preventive medicine at Gachon University
in South Korea, estimated that the daily caseload would peak at over
200,000 and stay at that level throughout March. Another estimate,
by the government’s National Institute for Mathematical Sciences,
predicted as many as 360,000 new patients a day by early next month.
The authorities are preparing more hospital beds for the seriously
ill as a precaution. They are also asking neighborhood clinics to
pitch in to treat at-home patients remotely. Nearly half of the
workers at government-run health clinics in Gyeonggi Province,
which surrounds Seoul, called for an immediate relief from the
“extreme stress” caused by a crushing workload, according to a
recent survey.
Last week, South Korea retired its GPS monitoring tool used to
enforce isolation — a smartphone app that alerted health workers
when patients left home without permission. Many of the 60,000
workers who monitored those movements on the app will be now
redeployed to assist vulnerable patients at home, delivering
medicine and manning hotlines.
“There has been a bottleneck in putting calls through, as we were
trying to handle a sudden spike in patients,” said Lee Ki-il, a
senior disease-control coordinator.
The government’s changing attitude was not solely influenced by
data. An increasingly impatient public has also become more vocal
about the need for a new approach.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/world/asia/south-korea-covid-spread.html
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