The government announced additional steps Wednesday to prepare for Covid-19 resurgence by, for instance, securing 4,000 hospital beds, based on the prediction that the daily infections could soar to 300,000 at its peak.
The new measures came in addition to steps announced a week ago, as the resurge progresses far faster than expected, officials said.
Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Lee Ki-il said the BA.5 subvariants had become a dominant strain in Korea, accounting for 52 percent of the country's new Covid-19 infections, including cases from overseas, in the third week of July, up from the first week's 24 percent.
far, the government has secured 5,699 beds with an operation rate of 25.3 percent of them, judging that it can handle up to 150,000 new cases daily. Previously, officials vowed to secure 1,400 more beds to prepare for daily infections of 200,000. However, healthy officials adjusted the number of additional beds to 4,000 to deal with 300,000 daily virus cases.
As an initial step, the government issued an executive order to hospitals across the country to operate an additional 1,435 Covid-19 beds, including 778 beds for moderate cases. "The government has asked hospitals to prepare beds that can be used immediately within a week," Lee said. "We expect that 1,276 beds will be operational within a week, 119 beds within two weeks, and 40 beds within three weeks."
The government also plans to continue to secure additional medical institutions where moderately ill or confirmed patients with underlying diseases can receive treatment as in-patients.
It also suspended face-to-face visits at facilities vulnerable to infection, such as nursing hospitals and facilities, from next Monday to strengthen quarantine measures preemptively.
Aside from securing hospital beds and quarantining vulnerable facilities, the government also pushes for purchasing more Covid-19 pills and reopening closed Covid-19 testing facilities.
It aims to secure 342,000 oral treatments in the second half and 600,000 treatments in the first half of next year.
The Presidential Office stressed that the government is ready to take additional steps if the fatality or severity rate increases.
"As we have experienced over the past three years, the Covid-19 situation is difficult to predict, control, and respond to," a presidential aide. "We are now focusing on self-quarantine, but it may become necessary to take all measures available depending on future situations."
The official explained that the government had decided to adopt the autonomous self-quarantine methods because the effect of social distancing decreased due to the high transmission power of new subvariants.
"The decision also reflected the relatively low fatality rate of the subvariant and our medical response capacity," he said.
On Wednesday, the KDCA confirmed 76,402 new virus cases, raising the cumulative caseload to 18,937,971.
The death toll came to 24,777, up 17 from the previous day, with a fatality rate of 0.13 percent. Critically ill patients also increased from 91 to 97.
According to the agency, about 44.64 million among 52 million Koreans have been fully vaccinated. In addition, about 33.41 million people had received their first booster shots, and 4.82 million had their second booster shots.
On Monday, Korea expanded eligibility for second booster shots to people 50 and older, including 18 and older, with underlying health conditions.