Daily cases could hit 250,000 in mid-March, says prime minister

Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum speaks at a Covid-19 response meeting at the Central Disaster Management Headquarters in Seoul on Friday. [YONHAP]

Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Korea should expect a peak of approximately 250,000 daily Covid cases in mid-March as the case count hit 165,890 on Friday.

“Some experts are saying that [the wave] may hit a peak faster than expected,” Kim said during a Covid-19 response meeting of the Central Disaster Management Headquarters in Seoul. “Although we do not know when, it certainly is nearing the peak.”

Kim urged the public not to be scared by the skyrocketing daily numbers, emphasizing that the fatality rate and the number of patients in critical condition remain stable because the omicron variant appears less virulent than previous Covid-19 strains.

After daily infections surpassed 100,000 for the first time last week, they reached a record high of 171,442 on Wednesday before declining slightly.

However, the number of Covid-19 patients in critical condition grew on Friday to 655, up from 581 critical cases on Thursday.

That figure represented a surge of 70 percent in critically ill patients compared to the previous week.

The number of deaths have more than doubled in the past week, with 94 deaths tied to Covid-19 infection on Friday, bringing the country’s total death toll thus far to 7,783 – a fatality rate of 0.29 percent, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

Citing the milder severity of the omicron variant, the government said it will continue its policy of focusing on serious cases and preventing deaths to ease pressure on the healthcare system.

The current policy calls for at-home recovery and self-testing, instead of the previous policy of rigorous contact-tracing and hospital treatment.

The number of patients recovering at home hit a record of 651,081 on Friday, the KDCA said.

“We need to decide where to concentrate our resources,” KDCA official Park Young-jun said, reflecting the limits on total hospital capacity to admit all who are infected with the virus.

Rules on a seven-day mandatory isolation period for unvaccinated people living with infected individuals have also been eased to reduce monitoring of them by health authorities, with self-monitoring to be implemented next month.

Family members of virus patients in self-isolation are also recommended now to undergo only two rounds of test, including one with a self-testing kit, instead of the two polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests previously required to end isolation.

The government’s recent emphasis on self-diagnosis and home recovery has given rise to concerns that it could leave certain segments of the population without professional medical supervision.

Earlier this week, a four-month-old baby died while receiving Covid-19 treatment at home, less than a week after a seven-month-old baby died while being sent to hospital for treatment.

The country has also witnessed a surge in Covid-19 infections among teenagers, with those 18 years old and under recently accounting for 25 percent of daily new infections.

Some local hospitals have refused to admit among young people for medical treatment as they are supposed to recover at home.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]