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| A medical worker guides people standing in line for COVID-19 tests at a testing station in Songpa District of Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap |
Daily infections surpass 20,000 for 1st time amid Omicron spread
By Lee Hyo-jin
Concerns are rising over a potential upsurge of COVID-19 infections following the Lunar New Year holiday, with the current Omicron-led wave of infections showing no signs of abating here.
The long weekend which ran from Jan. 31 through Wednesday, during which millions of people traveled across the country to visit their families, is feared to have fueled the spread of the coronavirus.
Daily new infections for Tuesday reached yet another record high of 20,270, breaking the 20,000-mark for the first time since the pandemic broke out, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The positivity rate, which means the percentage of people who tested positive out of all the people tested in a given period, stood at 8.9 percent, a slight decline from an all-time high of 9.3 percent the previous day.
Driven up by the highly contagious Omicron variant, infections are rising at an unprecedented speed. The daily caseload has more than doubled in just a week since 8,570 cases were reported on Jan. 25.
The steeper-than-expected increase of infections has placed health authorities on high alert, as this may take a toll on the newly-adopted quarantine system aimed at tackling the highly transmissible but less lethal Omicron variant.
Since late January, Korea has shifted its focus to early diagnosis and treatment among high risk patients. Hospitalization has been reserved only for the elderly and those with chronic illnesses, while others with mild symptoms have been placed under home treatment.
But the government's home treatment capacity is quickly reaching its limit.
As of Tuesday, the number of patients under homecare stood at 89,420, accounting for 81 percent of the total capacity the government can handle.
However, despite the soaring number of cases, it remains to be seen if social distancing measures will be strengthened after the current one ends on Sunday.
"Social distancing measures entail huge socio-economic costs. We will further toughen the measures if our medical system is on the verge of collapse, but we haven't reached such a point yet," said Health Ministry spokesman Son Young-rae, Jan. 28.
"Our goal is to curb Omicron infections without a further tightening of distancing measures," he added.
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| A sign at a COVID-19 testing site in Songpa District, Seoul, reads that only priority groups, including people aged 60 and over, along with those who have tested positive for a rapid antigen test, are eligible for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, Wednesday. Yonhap |
PCR tests available only for high risk groups from Thursday
While many people are expected to scramble to testing sites on Thursday after the Lunar New Year weekend, not all of them will be able to receive free polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests.
Under the new testing protocol, only priority groups such as people aged 60 and over, along with those who have come in close contact with a COVID-19 patient, are eligible for a free PCR test.
Others can undergo PCR tests only when they test positive through rapid antigen tests, also known as self-testing kits. People aged below 60 experiencing COVID-19 symptoms will need a doctor's recommendation to get the PCR test.
These policy changes are feared to trigger a shortage of self-testing kits, with pharmacies in some densely-populated regions already running out of the test kits.
Against this backdrop, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Wednesday it is cooperating with testing kit makers to produce 6.86 million kits which will be available at testing centers nationwide in the next couple of weeks, along with 9.6 million more of the products to be distributed online.
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