COVID-19 Medical Staff: "At Current Trend, Shortage of ICU Beds in 수도권 Within 1-2 Weeks"

Joo Young-su, Head of COVID-19 Joint Response Situation Room
25 ICU Beds Left in Seoul Metropolitan Area
Possibility of Bed Shortage in 2 Weeks Even After Additional Expansion↑

Severe patient emergency treatment beds in the negative pressure isolation ward set up at Seoul National Medical Center (Central Infectious Disease Hospital) / Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Dae-yeol] Joo Young-soo, head of the COVID-19 Joint Response Situation Room responsible for patient treatment and bed allocation for the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), stated on the 24th, "Based on the patient occurrence trend over the past two weeks, it is highly likely that beds will be exhausted within a week."

Director Joo leads the COVID-19 Joint Response Situation Room, established for patient transfers and other tasks, while serving as the Planning and Coordination Director at the National Medical Center, which operates as the central infectious disease hospital for COVID-19 response. The situation room includes medical staff from the National Medical Center, officials from the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Central Accident Response Headquarters, and public officials from various local governments in the Seoul metropolitan area. In the event of a rapid increase in patients within a short period, concerns about bed shortages arise. The main task is to allocate beds according to patient severity and, if beds are insufficient, to arrange transfers promptly to avoid delays in treatment.

Director Joo, who is witnessing the real-time increase in COVID-19 patients mainly in the metropolitan area, predicted that if severe cases occur following past trends, the shortage of beds in the metropolitan area will become an issue within one to two weeks. According to the Korean Society of Critical Care Medicine, there are 125 COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) beds in the metropolitan area (as of the 23rd), with about 25 beds currently available.

Director Joo said, "Based on the patient occurrence trend over the past two weeks, it is highly likely that beds will be exhausted within a week. However, if we secure up to 145 operational ICU beds again, as during the metropolitan outbreak in August and September, we can gain about an additional week of time."

Joo Young-soo, Head of the COVID-19 Joint Response Situation Room, is speaking at a meeting last August.

Earlier, the Central Clinical Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases analyzed clinical data from 3,060 patients nationwide and calculated the ICU admission rates by age group: 1% for those in their 50s, 4% for those in their 60s, 8% for those in their 70s, and 13% for those aged 80 and above. Assuming that patients worsen to a severe state about five days after confirmation, it is expected that approximately 46 additional ICU patients will emerge among those confirmed positive in the past two weeks.

Director Joo stated, "If new confirmed cases continue to increase at the current rate, there is a high possibility of ICU bed shortages in the metropolitan area starting from the second week of December. However, in non-metropolitan areas, there is some capacity, with about 100 out of approximately 130 ICU beds still available."

Since this issue is currently limited to the metropolitan area, he emphasized the need for private tertiary hospitals to actively provide beds and for ICU beds to be used only by patients who truly require critical care. Director Joo estimated that about 15-20% of patients currently in ICU beds could be safely transferred to general isolation rooms. While it is necessary to secure additional beds as the government is doing, he stressed the urgent need to expand nursing staff accordingly, as increasing personnel cannot be resolved in the short term.

On the morning of the 24th, the area in front of the screening clinic at the National Medical Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, is crowded with citizens.

Private Hospitals Cooperate on ICU Beds
Patient Transfers Increasing
Government Needs to Establish Self-Treatment Guidelines

Additionally, following the amendment of related laws last month, it is necessary to promptly create and distribute guidelines on self-treatment for COVID-19 patients to frontline sites. Since mild and asymptomatic patients do not require special medical treatment, the law was revised last month to allow them to be treated in isolation at home; however, treatment guidelines for this are not yet available.

Guidelines and infrastructure should be established for patient transfers according to treatment progress, such as from 'ICU bed → general bed → residential treatment center → self-treatment.' Director Joo said, "The government has promised to create these guidelines within this year, but they are needed immediately to prepare for the winter surge."

Furthermore, he emphasized the need to address issues such as the regional joint response systems, which are not yet active in non-metropolitan areas, appropriate personal protective equipment for frontline medical staff, and care demand issues in the event of cluster outbreaks in vulnerable facilities such as nursing homes. In the long term, he suggested dispatching emergency medical response teams to manage cluster outbreaks within vulnerable facilities at the local government level and introducing new diagnostic tools like rapid antigen tests to allow facility workers to check for COVID-19 infection every 1-3 days.

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