Korean government announces new measures against Covid-19

Social Affairs

Published: 20 Jul. 2022, 13:58

Korean government announces new measures against Covid-19

Lee Ki-il, the second vice minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, makes remarks during a meeting of Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters held at the Sejong Government Complex Wednesday. [NEWS1]

With the spread of the BA.5 variant of Covid-19 progressing faster than expected, the Korean government Wednesday announced additional measures against the outbreak.

“The number of confirmed cases is expected to peak at 300,000,” said Lee Ki-il, first control officer of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters and second vice minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, during a meeting of the headquarters Wednesday.

Additional measures will include expanding the number of “one-stop medical facilities” that handle everything from testing Covid-19 to treatment and prescription, from the current number of 6,500 locations to 10,000 by the end of this month. About 4,000 additional hospital beds for Covid-19 patients will also be secured.

The government also plans to strengthen the management of hospitals and medical facilities. PCR tests will be performed once a week on all medical workers, and visitors to hospitals will be restricted.

“The number of confirmed cases today is in the 70,000s,” said Lee. “This is almost double that of last week. The doubling of confirmed cases has been ongoing for the past three weeks.

“The detection rate of the BA.5 variant was 52 percent last week, so we can say that the BA.5 variant is dominant,” Lee said.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]