Yangcheon-gu, COVID-19 Preemptive Testing for Elderly Welfare Facility Residents

Preemptive Testing for Over 800 Residents in Elderly Care and Protection Facilities

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] Yangcheon-gu (Mayor Kim Soo-young) is conducting proactive COVID-19 testing targeting elderly welfare facilities where elderly people from vulnerable health groups live together, due to the occurrence of small-scale cluster infections of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) within the local community, where close contact within facilities increases the risk of cluster infections.

The proactive testing is conducted in two ways: mobile testing, where a mobile testing team composed of six members including doctors, nurses, clinical pathologists, and administrative staff visits the facilities directly to conduct tests; and visit testing, where residents of day and night care facilities (daycare centers) visit the public health center screening clinics for testing.

This testing utilizes pooled testing techniques, which involve mixing specimens from multiple individuals into one sample for testing, and if the result is positive, individual retesting is conducted using the remaining specimens.

Although asymptomatic, this method is suitable for rapidly testing a large number of people in a short period within high-risk groups requiring periodic testing for infection prevention.

Proactive testing is planned for 807 applicants from 18 elderly nursing facilities and 17 day and night care facilities in the area, which were pre-registered. Tuberculosis diagnostic tests will also be conducted concurrently for those aged 65 and older.

If positive cases are detected, immediate follow-up actions such as epidemiological investigations will be carried out according to confirmed patient response procedures.

On July 7 and 8, the district conducted proactive COVID-19 testing on 346 workers at nursing homes and day and night care facilities, all of whom tested negative, successfully preventing potential cluster infections in advance.

Kim Soo-young, Mayor of Yangcheon-gu, stated, “According to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, the mortality rate for confirmed cases aged 80 and above reaches 25%, and silent transmission by asymptomatic infections of unknown routes continues to occur, making the safety of the elderly paramount. Yangcheon-gu is fully committed to preventing the spread of infectious diseases to ensure both the physical and mental health of our elderly residents.”

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