Daejeon City Establishes Dedicated Teams Including Infectious Disease Management Division for Flexible COVID-19 Response

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Daejeon City will establish and operate a dedicated infectious disease management organization. The dedicated organization is being established to respond to the resurgence and prolongation of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) in the region and to enable proactive measures.

The city announced on the 29th that it will implement this organizational restructuring after deliberation by the Daejeon City Council on the 1st of next month.

The organizational restructuring centers on establishing an ‘Infectious Disease Management Division’ at City Hall to comprehensively perform infectious disease oversight, prevention, response functions, and medical tasks, and establishing an ‘Infectious Disease Testing Division’ at the Daejeon City Health and Environment Research Institute to take charge of infectious disease testing and diagnosis within the region.

Along with the restructuring, the city will reinforce and assign epidemiological investigators to the Infectious Disease Management Division and testing personnel to the Infectious Disease Testing Division.

In particular, the city has converted the existing ‘division’ level staffing system to a ‘department/office’ level staffing system, allowing heads of each department/office to adjust staffing within their units, thereby creating flexibility for necessary personnel to be autonomously deployed in a timely manner for urgent tasks.

Kim Ju-i, Director of the Planning and Coordination Office, said, “The city is carrying out an ‘emergency organizational restructuring’ prepared to proactively respond to the COVID-19 infection crisis that is resurging in the region. The restructuring will focus on strengthening the infectious disease management control tower function and enabling flexible COVID-19 response.”

Meanwhile, as of the 29th, the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Daejeon area stands at 113 (including 15 overseas entrants). Initially, confirmed cases in Daejeon rapidly increased linked to multi-level marketing and door-to-door sales facilities.

However, unlike the recent slowdown in confirmed cases related to multi-level marketing and door-to-door sales facilities, the increase in confirmed cases with unclear infection sources (#105, #111, etc.) is causing tension for the city and quarantine authorities.

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