Gwangju City: 3 out of 10 Citizens Tested for COVID-19

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City has decided to focus on preventing the spread of COVID-19 in advance by expanding testing, including proactive testing, to detect infected individuals early.

According to Gwangju City on the 17th, the city completed 101,722 tests this month alone through expanded proactive testing at vulnerable facilities and operation of a temporary screening clinic at City Hall. As of this date, a total of 414,537 COVID-19 specimen tests have been conducted, which is about 29% of the 1.45 million population of Gwangju.

The total number of confirmed cases is 1,439, with a positivity rate of 0.34%.

In response to the recent rapid increase in cluster infections mainly in vulnerable facilities such as nursing homes and hospitals, the city has expanded proactive testing for these facilities. In particular, efforts are focused on blocking external sources of infection through regular proactive testing of facility workers.

Since the 8th, weekly tests have been conducted on workers and residents at 411 facilities including nursing homes, hospitals, psychiatric medical institutions, and residential facilities for the disabled. By the 14th, 35,745 people at 363 facilities were tested, all of whom received negative results.

Since July last year, proactive testing has been conducted six times targeting 1,372 facilities and 111,699 people in vulnerable facilities, and from the 15th to the 21st, proactive testing is being carried out at 411 vulnerable facilities.

Additionally, since December 27 last year, the city has installed a temporary screening clinic at the outdoor music hall of City Hall, playing a significant role in identifying asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers. Over the past three weeks, 5,834 people (corrected) have been tested, with 22 (corrected) confirmed positive cases.

In particular, some confirmed cases have unclear infection routes, and the city has preemptively blocked community transmission through these cases.

The City Hall temporary screening clinic operates daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (with disinfection from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.) and anyone can receive free anonymous testing.

Park Hyang, Director of the Welfare and Health Bureau of Gwangju City, stated, “Early detection of infected individuals through proactive COVID-19 testing is effective in blocking infections,” and added, “We will continue proactive testing at vulnerable facilities such as nursing homes and hospitals to prevent cluster infections within these facilities.”

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