Contact tracing, quarantines evolve with Omicron

Medical workers monitor Covid-19 patients under home treatment at Seongnam Citizens Medical Center in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on Monday. [YONHAP]

In response to soaring Omicron infections, Korea is saying goodbye to its original “3T” pandemic formula — testing, tracing and treatment — and introducing a much simpler contact tracing and quarantine management system.

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters on Monday announced a new set of public health and quarantine measures to deal with the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

"Omicron has lower severity and fatality than Delta, and the majority of its cases are asymptomatic and mild,” the headquarters said in a press release.

“The current public health and medical system, which focuses equally on all confirmed cases, may lack efficiency and lead to insufficient management of high-risk groups,” it said.

The new focus will be on preventing Covid-19 patients at high risk from deteriorating into severe illness and death through a more targeted use of medical resources.

Currently, all Covid-19 patients in Korea are required to treat at home except for a few exceptions, such as people who live in an environment vulnerable to infection, or children, the elderly and the disabled who need caregivers.

With the surge in new infections and the management of home-treated patients reaching its limit, the government is changing its system to one similar to Japan’s.

Under the new system, patients will be divided into an “intensive management group” — which includes people aged 60 or older and people aged 50 or older who are at higher risk or with underlying conditions — and all others.

The government will focus its monitoring on the first group.

Two daily health checks over the phone will continue for the intensive management group, while others will no longer be called once a day. Instead, they can get non-face-to-face treatment at local medical clinics or can consult at home treatment counseling centers.

A total of 146,445 patients were getting at-home treatment as of Monday, close to the country’s monitoring capacity, which is 166,000.

“For health care centered on intensive management groups, we will utilize and expand the current 532 designated medical institutions up to 650 and have a total of 200,000 personnel available for monitoring,” the headquarters said. The country believes it can manage up to 210,000 daily patients.

Tokyo, which experienced a surge of Omicron cases earlier than Korea, switched to a home care system at the end of last month in which young asymptomatic and mild Covid-19 patients monitor their health on their own and report directly only if their conditions worsen.

“Our system is different in that if something goes wrong, patients can receive non-contact treatment at a local hospital or clinic and can be prescribed a medicine,” said Lee Ki-il, first control officer for the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters.

Home treatment kits, including fever reducers and pulse oximeter, will only be provided to patients subject to strict monitoring. Daily necessities given to patients in quarantine will be determined according to the availability in each local district.

Korea is also transforming its robust contact tracing method and quarantine system.

The contact tracing done by public health centers will be changed to a method in which Covid-19 patients directly submit relevant information, such as people they contacted, in an online link sent by the authorities.

The tracking of people ordered to stay at home via a mobile application will also be scrapped.

"The voluntary freedom and responsibility of not leaving home while under home treatment should be relied upon,” Lee said. "The cooperation of the public is crucial."

Cohabitants of patients in quarantine, who also had to stay home, will now be allowed to go out for essential purposes, such as for grocery shopping, getting medicine and visiting hospitals, as long as they abide by public health measures such as wearing face masks.

Fully vaccinated cohabitants won't have to go into quarantine even if their relatives are infected. Unvaccinated cohabitants won't have to either, but they will be told to follow basic preventive measures such as mask-wearing and a ban on visiting high-risk facilities.

Korea has decided to maintain in-person classes as much as possible for the upcoming spring semester.

Kindergartens, first and second graders and special-education students will be allowed to go to classes every day.

Universities will be advised maintain in-person learning as long as they also have a plan to shift to online classes.

Schools will now be responsible for contact tracing if an infection breaks out.

Korea reported 35,286 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, staying above 30,000 for three days in a row, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

Omicron accounted for 91.1 percent of all Covid-19 cases last week, and the government forecast that daily infections could soar to 130,000 to 170,000 by the end of this month.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]