4 Samsung Seoul Hospital Nurses Confirmed Positive... Main Building Under 'Cohort Quarantine' for 3 Days (Comprehensive)

"The First Confirmed Case Is Not an Itaewon Visitor"

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] Medical staff at Samsung Medical Center in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, have been consecutively diagnosed with COVID-19. This is the first infection case among medical staff at the country's 'Big 5' large hospitals.

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon announced at a regular briefing on the morning of the 19th, "Four medical staff members at Samsung Medical Center have tested positive."

Earlier, Samsung Medical Center stated, "A nurse in the operating room was confirmed positive for COVID-19 yesterday, and an epidemiological investigation is underway."

Mayor Park explained, "After receiving a report that a thoracic surgery operating room nurse tested positive yesterday, additional tests confirmed three more cases."

The nurse who tested positive the day before is in her 20s and resides in Seoul. It has been determined that she recently did not visit the Itaewon area. She also had no contact with acquaintances who had been to Itaewon, so it is presumed not to be a secondary infection case originating from the Itaewon clubs.

The four confirmed cases are nurses who worked in the same zone within the main building's operating room. The confirmed nurses include a 29-year-old woman from Songpa-gu, the first confirmed case, a 24-year-old woman from Seocho-gu, a 30-year-old woman from Gangnam-gu, and a 41-year-old woman from Gangbuk-gu. A Samsung Medical Center official explained, "It has not been confirmed whether the four confirmed cases worked in the same operating room, but they worked in the same zone."

The first confirmed nurse developed a fever on her day off, the 17th. She did not go to work on the 18th, waited at home after a diagnostic test, and was confirmed positive that evening before being transferred to a government-designated hospital.

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The infection route has not yet been identified. The nurse and her mother, who lives with her, tested negative in the first diagnostic test.

There are about 277 medical staff and patients who had contact with the first confirmed case. The hospital is currently conducting diagnostic tests on 265 individuals out of 262 medical staff and 15 patients. It is known that the nurse working in the main building's operating room mostly wore a mask inside the hospital and operating room.

Gangnam-gu decided to cohort quarantine the entire main building of Samsung Medical Center for three days starting today and temporarily close the third-floor operating rooms.

Meanwhile, during the 2015 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak, a total of 85 infections occurred at Samsung Medical Center, accounting for about half of the total 186 confirmed cases nationwide.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.