COVID-19 Cases Surpass 5,000!... Kim In-ho, Chairman of Seoul Metropolitan Council, Urges Seoul City to Take Active Measures

Treatment Stage: "Thorough Management of Severe Patient Beds and Waiting Patients, Urgent Improvement of Medical Staff Treatment"
Testing Stage: "Expanding Testing Convenience by Utilizing Dong Community Centers as Screening Clinics"
Prevention Stage: "Public Institutions Should Lead by Example in Remote Work, Demand for National Funding of Booster Shots"

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] Kim In-ho, Chairperson of the Seoul Metropolitan Council, requested that Seoul City prepare active countermeasures following the first time that the number of new COVID-19 confirmed cases surpassed 5,000.

According to the Central Disease Control Headquarters, as of 12:00 AM on December 1, the total number of confirmed domestic cases increased by 5,123 from the previous day, reaching 452,350. This is the first time daily confirmed cases have exceeded 5,000 since the outbreak began. Among the new confirmed cases, 5,075 were domestic transmissions and 48 were imported cases, with 2,212 occurring in the Seoul area.

First, Chairperson Kim requested an inspection of the medical field situation. He asked for monitoring of the status of beds for critically ill patients and patients waiting, as well as the management of home treatment, and urged efforts to protect the health of medical staff and improve their working conditions.

Kim stated, “The biggest concern is that the bed occupancy rate continues to rise. Since the number of people waiting for bed allocation is also increasing, multifaceted solutions for securing beds and managing home-treated patients must be sought.”

He added, “If the bed capacity is this limited, the medical field must be facing an even more severe situation,” emphasizing, “Over the past two years, medical staff have risked a high level of infection and have continued to work under unimaginable high-intensity conditions. Improving their treatment is urgently needed.”

He also said, “Practical measures to improve medical staff treatment, such as expanding new personnel, adjusting wages relative to working hours, and providing health protection and psychological treatment, must be prepared and reflected in this year’s budget. The City Council will also closely review this during the budget committee deliberations.”

Chairperson Kim further stated, “Mayor Oh Se-hoon should not waste time on personnel appointments for public institution heads but should seriously consider personnel and treatment improvements across public medical and quarantine fields.”

Following this, Kim emphasized the need to significantly expand screening clinics to improve convenience and processing speed for citizens’ testing.

Kim proposed, “Citizens should be able to get tested near their residences without having to visit distant screening clinics, so testing convenience and speed must be enhanced. Utilizing community service centers as screening clinics could solve this problem.”

He added, “If citizens can quickly get tested at nearby community service centers, additional contact can be reduced, and even those with simple suspicions can easily get tested, which will help slow the spread.”

Finally, he stressed that prevention is as important as treating confirmed cases and screening tests, strongly requesting the activation of telecommuting in public institutions and national funding for booster shots.

Kim emphasized, “Public institutions must take the lead in making telecommuting a regular practice. If there are systemic shortcomings, they must be improved promptly to change the working environment so that telecommuting is not difficult, and Seoul City should not be an exception.”

He also stated, “Vaccination implementation costs must be covered by national funds. Local governments are already financially strained due to quarantine and national support payments, and if vaccination-related costs are passed on to them, smooth vaccine administration will be difficult. Considering the current situation where new confirmed cases are rapidly increasing and booster shots are strongly required, next year’s booster shot vaccinations must be fully funded by the national government.”

As of now, 82.9% of the domestic population has received the first vaccine dose, and 79.9% have completed the second dose.

Chairperson Kim also conveyed comfort and a request to citizens. “We hoped for a year-end and New Year preparing for recovery, but the situation is not easy. However, if the strong response efforts of the national and local governments are combined with mature and wise civic awareness, I believe we can overcome this crisis. Having taken the first difficult step toward restoring daily life, I ask everyone to overcome this challenge once more through thorough hygiene management and voluntary social distancing.”

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