Omicron wave keeps on with 2nd highest case count

Social Affairs

Published: 23 Mar. 2022, 18:34 Updated: 23 Mar. 2022, 18:38

Omicron wave keeps on with 2nd highest case count

Students at Sungkyunkwan University in central Seoul enjoy a university festival, which was held on campus for the first time in three years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. [YONHAP]

Despite seeing its second-highest number of Covid-19 infections Wednesday, Korea will no longer offer intensive monitoring to elderly and immunocompromised virus patients.

Korea on Wednesday reported 490,881 new Covid-19 cases, a jump of nearly 140,000 from the previous day. It was the second highest count ever after 621,205 new cases registered last Thursday.

As seen in previous weeks, a peak was hit in the middle of the week.

Health authorities earlier predicted cases would peak and then decline from this Wednesday. In fact, cases have been lower than the previous week for four days since the weekend, with officials carefully raising hopes that the epidemic is slowly fading out.

But on Wednesday, new infections were some 90,000 more than last Wednesday's.

Regarding the question that has been dragging on for weeks — when Korea will experience a steady decline in cases — Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum noted Wednesday the “next one to two weeks will be the turning point of the pandemic.”

By midnight Tuesday, the cumulative total passed the grim milestone of 10 million cases, meaning more than 20 percent of the country’s 51-million population has been infected with the coronavirus. Countries abroad that felt the Omicron wave earlier than Korea have seen cases falling after having more than 20 percent of their populations infected. Yet domestic authorities said it was difficult to evaluate when cases will start to decline, given factors such as the widely-implemented rapid antigen tests, which have boosted the numbers, and the rise of the Stealth Omicron subvariant.

The number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients in critical condition remained in the 1,000s at 1,084, while 291 more people died of the virus.

Despite going through the worst virus wave, the government further relaxed its Covid-19 treatment system.

On Wednesday, health authorities announced it will no longer offer intensive Covid-19 monitoring to elderly and immunocompromised virus patients, who were considered the groups at highest risk of developing serious illness and dying.

Korea has been managing Covid-19 patients at home with different methods by dividing them into an “intensive management group” — which includes people over the age of 59 and people with underlying conditions — and all others. Only the first group was under round-the-clock monitoring with two daily health checks over the phone each day.

Starting Friday, people 60 or older and people with weaker immune systems who test positive on rapid antigen tests at hospitals will be downgraded to the regular management group. Like most other patients in this group who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, they’ll voluntarily have to contact their local hospital or clinic to access remote healthcare services if their conditions worsen.

“There were cases among the elderly who preferred to go to local hospitals and clinics [instead of designated medical facilities for intensive monitoring] if they had a hospital they usually went to, or had a medicine to take [for their underlying conditions],” Park Hyang, director of antivirus measures at the Central Disaster Management Headquarters, explained at a briefing on Wednesday, “thus [the new measure] is to help these people adapt quickly to the medical system.”

Park continued, “By prescribing drugs more swiftly and protecting these groups more strongly and quickly, we believe the new measure can minimize deaths from deterioration of illness.”

She added people wishing to receive intensive management can ask their local health center to be moved into the monitoring group.

In addition, Korea’s ministry of food and drug safety on Wednesday granted the emergency use of the oral Covid-19 pill Lagevrio (ingredient name Molnupiravir), made by the U.S. pharmaceutical company Merck and imported by MSD Korea.

Lagevrio became the second oral antiviral pill to be used in Korea following Pfizer's Paxlovid, which was introduced in December.

“Lagevrio capsules are expected to help in preventing patients from deteriorating into severe illness,” the ministry said. “The decision was made […] in response to the need for alternative treatments for high-risk, mild-to-moderate patients who have difficulty in receiving existing treatments at a time when the number of Covid-19 patients has increased significantly.”

In particular, given that the country has been running out of supplies for Paxlovid, and that Paxlovid cannot be combined with 28 types of drugs (or 23 in Korea), the use of Lagevrio is expected to resolve such difficulties.

Lagevrio is planned to be prescribed to adult Covid-19 patients who cannot take injectable treatments, or can't tolerate Paxlovid for reasons such as severely impaired kidney or liver functions. Pregnant women or minors under 18 are banned from being prescribed the drug.

According to the ministry, patients should take four capsules of Lagevrio twice a day for five days. The drug should be taken within five days after testing positive for Covid-19 and showing symptoms.

Lagevrio has obtained either conditional or emergency approval in 15 countries including the United States, Britain and Japan.