The official Covid-19 death toll stood at 13,432 on Wednesday, but there may be a considerable number of “hidden deaths,” possibly pushing the unofficial toll above 30,000, a private expert said.
According to the population trend of Statistics Korea, the number of deaths totaled 31,634 last December when there was a shortage of beds due to the rapid surge in patients with severe cases. Considering that the number of deaths in the same month from 2017 to 2019 ranged from 26,523 to 26,883, the figure reported last year showed an increase of nearly 5,000.
The figure is also much higher than in 26,866 in December 2020, when the government had a firmer grip on the spread of the virus.
In addition to patients who died while receiving treatment for Covid-19, patients who died of complications after being cured of Covid-19, and those who had the virus but died before testing positive were “excess deaths” that would not have happened had it not been for Covid-19.
“The actual number of deaths related to Covid-19 may be two to three times the number of the official death toll,” said Professor Kim Woo-joo of the Infectious Disease Department at Korea University Guro Hospital. “The cumulative number of deaths is estimated to be at least 30,000.”
Professor Kim stressed that the current number of deaths reflects the time when there were 200,000 new confirmed cases per day. Considering that an increase in deaths and severe cases usually occurs two to three weeks after the increase in the number of confirmed cases, the scale of excess deaths will soar given the recent surge in confirmed cases.
“Since last week, the number of new confirmed cases has surged to 400,000- 600,000, and there is a possibility that the daily death toll could reach 600 to 900,” Kim said.
Professor Kim emphasized that expanding the number of beds dedicated to Covid-19 is the only way to reduce the death toll.
“The government announced that it would establish five hospitals exclusively responsible for infectious diseases in each region, but the construction has not been completed yet,” Kim said. “Seeing general patients and Covid-19 patients amid limited hospital beds has hindered our effort to provide necessary treatment to patients in time.”
On Wednesday, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) confirmed 490,881 new Covid-19 cases, raising the cumulative caseload to 10,427,247.
With the total caseload breached the grim milestone of 10 million the day before, Wednesday's tally is also the second-highest daily infection case after the KDCA confirmed 621,205 new cases last Thursday.
The recent surge in virus cases has also wreaked havoc on schools, leaving students, parents, and teachers confused with quarantine protocols.
According to the Ministry of Education, during the week of March 15-21, 379,983 elementary, middle, and high school students across the country were infected by Covid-19.
Since the beginning of the semester, the education ministry has confirmed 1,059,818 student infections.
As reports on students’ infections tend to be delayed before reaching the Ministry of Education, officials noted that the number of confirmed cases might increase further.
Meanwhile, amid the country’s medical capacity overload, the government announced that it would designate older adults aged 60 and more and people with weakened immunity who have tested positive for the virus through a rapid antigen test as a general management group from Friday.
The general management group will receive non-face-to-face counseling, symptom monitoring, and prescription from the medical institution that confirmed the patient as having the Covid-19 virus.
If the patient is over 60, they can also receive a prescription from the relevant medical institution for Paxlovid, Pfizer’s oral Covid-19 treatment.
The government has, until recently, classified adults over 60 and those with weakened immunity in the intensive management group for at-home treatment and provided health monitoring twice a day from designated medical institutions.
Those in the general management group are not subject to receive such care.
However, the government stressed that if confirmed persons over 60 and those with weakened immunity want periodic monitoring, they can convert to an intensive management group through the basic investigation process at a public health center.
“Among the confirmed cases classified as intensive management groups, such as those aged 60 or older, there were cases where the patients preferred a local hospital or clinic,” said Park Hyang, who oversees disease control at the Central Disaster Management Headquarters. “Therefore, we decided to change the system.”