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New Covid testing system tests clinics and hospitals

Published: 14 Mar. 2022, 18:46

An ENT clinic in Jongno District, central Seoul, is crowded with people wanting to get tested for Covid-19 on Monday, the first day the government approved rapid antigen test results conducted by medical professionals for the diagnosis of Covid-19. [YONHAP]

A rush by people to get rapid antigen Covid tests caused confusion on the first day of changes to the testing system.

On Monday, Korea started accepting rapid antigen test results conducted at medical clinics or hospitals — which use a deeper nasopharyngeal swab than the widely-distributed home test kits — for official diagnoses of Covid-19, effective for one month.

Under the new system, after testing positive on a rapid antigen test at any of 7,588 designated respiratory medical clinics nationwide, people will be able to receive treatment, consultations and prescriptions without having to take an additional PCR test. People over the age of 59 will immediately be able to get Paxlovid oral antivirus treatment.

On Monday, clinics were overrun with people wanting tests. Some had to wait for hours to get a rapid antigen test, and some clinics halted testing when they ran out of kits.

A director of a medical clinic in Nowon District in northern Seoul described the scene as a “battlefield.”

“I examined 175 patients in the morning alone," the medical director said, "and 140 of them wanted to take a Covid-19 test, of which 60 to 70 percent tested positive.

"It was hectic even though there was a lot of staff because in case someone tests positive, we had to report [to the authorities] while also prescribing drugs,” the director said. “Patients who were sick with high fevers had to wait long hours.”

A hospital in Gwanak District in southern Seoul had to stop accepting new patients in the morning after it ran out of testing kits.

“200 people visited in the morning alone," a nurse at the hospital said, "The kits ran short after 11 a.m., so we stopped examinations and got an emergency delivery from the public health center in the afternoon.”

Some people feared getting Covid as a result of getting tested.

“I came to get a negative test result, but there were 50 people waiting in this small hospital,” one person said. “Even the doctor came out and asked people who didn’t have symptoms to go home as they may catch the virus while waiting.”

Amid the continued spread of Omicron, Korea’s critical Covid-19 cases hit an all-time high of 1,158.

After critical cases climbed over 1,000 on March 8, the figure has remained in the 1,000s for seven days in a row.

By age, 978 critical cases were aged 60 or older. There were 96 people in their 50s, 31 in their 40s, 23 in their 30s and 18 in their 20s. Five people were in their teens, and seven were below 10.

Intensive care beds are also rapidly filling up.

As of Sunday midnight, 66.8 percent of Covid-19 I.C.U. beds across the country were occupied — 1,839 out of 2,751 beds — up 2.7 percentage points from the previous day.

The country added 309,790 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, with all but 62 locally transmitted, raising the total caseload to 6,866,222. Cases exceeded the 300,000-mark for three days in a row.

The government has predicted the peak of the Omicron wave to arrive this week. The daily average number of infections is expected to reach around 295,000 and 372,000, and critical cases around 2,000.

BY HWANG SU-YEON, SEO JI-EUN [[email protected]]