Covid medical centers are winding down

Social Affairs

Published: 31 May. 2022, 16:59 Updated: 31 May. 2022, 17:37

Covid medical centers are winding down

Security camera screens show empty wards and medical staff leaving a Covid-19 residential treatment center in Seoul on Tuesday. With the continuing drop in Covid-19 cases, most community treatment centers and temporary screening clinics will stop operating from Wednesday. [YONHAP]

Amid a continued decline in Covid-19 cases, Korea is transitioning its healthcare system to a new normal by expanding face-to-face treatment of patients and reducing monitoring of high-risk groups.

“We made the decision in consideration the current situation — such as the reduced size of the outbreak and the decision to introduce a fast-track procedure to high-risk groups,” explained Lee Sang-min, minister of interior and safety, in a virus meeting on Tuesday.

The fast-track procedure refers to a system that enables Covid patients at the highest risk of severe illness and death to receive tests, treatment, and prescriptions for the coronavirus within one day.

The government plans to add more outpatient treatment centers where Covid-19 patients can receive face-to-face treatment while in quarantine. As of Tuesday, a total of 6,446 outpatient treatment centers were open across the country.

Confirmed patients will now be required to visit a hospital in person for medical care, while remote counseling will be reduced.

From June 6, daily health checks of the "intensive management group" recovering at home, such as the patients aged 60 or older or immune-compromised patients, will be cut from twice to once a day. Phone counseling and prescriptions for patients under the age of 12 will be changed to once a day.

“As an alternative to reducing the number of health checks, we will oversee the intensive management group under a health care system centered on face-to-face treatment, such as through the fast-track procedure for high-risk groups,” said Lee Sang-won, head of the epidemiological investigations team at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, in Tuesday’s press briefing.

With home treatment systems for Covid patients taking over in Korea, residential treatment centers — or Covid-19 quarantine facilities for patients with mild cases — are closing.

According to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, six residential treatment centers out of 12 were open nationwide as of Tuesday, including those in Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi, Cheonan, South Gyeongsang and Jeju. From June, only the Cheonan center, which is dedicated to foreigners coming in from abroad, will remain open.

A residential treatment center was first opened in the southern city of Daegu in March 2020 to help solve a shortage of hospital beds during the country’s first large outbreak of Covid-19. Hotels, university dormitories, and training institutes were used as centers.

Demand for residential treatment centers fell significantly due to the receding of the pandemic and home care being made the default for Covid-19 treatment. Only the elderly without guardians and people living in housing conditions vulnerable to virus infection, such as in gosiwon, have been admitted to the centers. As a result, only 36 out of 1,959, or 1.8 percent of the total residential treatment beds, were in use as of 5 p.m. Monday.

The remaining 78 temporary screening clinics for Covid-19 across the country will also close, and people wishing to get a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test should now visit public health centers. This comes as rapid antigen tests, which are available at medical hospitals and clinics nearby, are needed more.

Ahead of the summer vacation period, Korea decided to further ease virus regulations for travelers.

From Wednesday, the number of tests that must be performed after entry to Korea will be reduced from two to one. Currently, PCR tests within one day of entry and RAT tests between six to seven days of entry are required, but this will change to a PCR test within three days of entry and the RAT test only being recommended.

In addition, children's exemptions for quarantine after arriving in Korea will be expanded.

Children under 12 will be exempted from quarantine if all guardians who enter the country with them are fully vaccinated. The current rule exempted children under 6.

Health authorities also decided to ease quarantine exemptions for teenagers between the ages of 12 to 17 as long as they have received a second vaccine dose.

Korea on Tuesday reported 17,191 new Covid-19 infections, raising the total caseload to 18,103,638, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

Nine more people died of Covid-19, a second day the country saw Covid deaths in the single-digits.

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