Preventing COVID-19 Spread in Long-term Care Hospitals: "Weekly PCR Testing for Staff" (Comprehensive)

Last Month: 996 Confirmed Cases and 99 Deaths in Nursing Hospitals

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seo So-jeong] The government has decided to conduct weekly polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for all workers at nursing hospitals nationwide to prevent the spread of infections in vulnerable facilities to COVID-19.

At a regular briefing on the 3rd, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCH) announced through the "Emergency Medical Response Plan for Nursing Hospitals" that the PCR testing interval for workers at nursing hospitals nationwide will be shortened from two weeks to one week.

According to the CDSCH, over the past month, 996 confirmed cases and 99 deaths occurred in 14 nursing hospitals under cohort isolation, indicating that the damage is still ongoing.

In particular, many nursing hospitals have overcrowded rooms with 6 to 7 beds, and most patients are bedridden with underlying diseases, which has increased the damage.

So far, analyzing cases of cluster infections in nursing hospitals, infections mainly started through workers, and infection control during cohort isolation was found to be insufficient. It was also identified that the main cause of worsening situations was the insufficient timely support of medical resources and transfer beds.

To strengthen preventive measures, the government will expand diagnostic testing for workers and enhance management starting next week. Currently, the PCR testing interval for workers at nursing hospitals nationwide is one week in the metropolitan area and two weeks in non-metropolitan areas, but going forward, it will be shortened to one week nationwide.

Workers who have visited high-risk groups or high-risk areas will undergo rapid antigen tests and will be allowed to work only after confirming a negative result.

Nursing hospitals and local government officials will be paired one-to-one to verify compliance with quarantine rules daily via phone calls, and on-site inspections will be conducted if necessary.

Additionally, in case of a large-scale outbreak of confirmed cases, non-contact patients will be promptly transferred to other nursing hospitals, and medical resources will be deployed to treat the remaining patients.

When the number of confirmed cases is small, confirmed patients will be transferred to dedicated nursing hospitals or severe care beds according to the severity, and non-confirmed patients will be classified into non-contact and close contact groups and quarantined for 14 days for observation.

The government plans to designate general nursing hospitals and dedicated nursing hospitals by city and province to secure resources such as beds and personnel, and support hospitals receiving transfers through health insurance or loss compensation.

Regarding this, Lee Se-ran, head of the Patient Bed Management Division at the CDSCH, said, "In the case of Gyeonggi-do and Incheon, one dedicated nursing hospital has already been designated each, and Gwangju will be designated soon," adding, "We have sent official letters to each city and province to install a certain number of hospitals, so we expect hospitals to open starting next week."

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