Nearly 120,000 Nationwide Home Treatment Patients...Urgent Expansion of Managed Medical Institutions Needed

Medical staff are busy working at the Home Treatment Management Situation Room of Seoul Medical Center in Jungnang-gu, Seoul. Photo by Joint Press Corps

As the spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant accelerates, the number of home treatment patients nationwide has approached 120,000.

According to the Central Disease Control Headquarters, as of midnight today, the number of home treatment patients nationwide was 118,032, an increase of 13,175 from the previous day.

Seoul has 28,752, Gyeonggi-do 35,623, and Incheon 8,408, with a total of 72,783 (61.7%) receiving home treatment in the metropolitan area.

The number of home treatment patients outside the metropolitan area is 7,659 in Busan, 6,037 in Daegu, 3,448 in Gwangju, 1,900 in Daejeon, 1,637 in Ulsan, 740 in Sejong, 1,480 in Gangwon, 1,146 in Chungbuk, 2,377 in Chungnam, 4,326 in Jeonbuk, 3,490 in Jeonnam, 4,965 in Gyeongbuk, 5,315 in Gyeongnam, and 729 in Jeju, totaling 45,249.

Due to the rapid increase in new confirmed cases caused by the spread of Omicron, the number of people newly entering home treatment far exceeds those who complete the 7 to 10 days of home treatment and are released from isolation.

Currently, 524 medical institutions are managing the health status of home treatment patients, with a total capacity to manage 155,000 patients. The current number of patients under management is 76.1% of the management capacity.

The government is securing medical institutions to ensure that home treatment is not disrupted even if new confirmed cases reach 30,000 to 50,000 this month. Each managing medical institution has at least 1 to 2 doctors and 3 to 5 dedicated nurses per 150 patients.

The Central Disease Control Headquarters announced that as of midnight today, there were 36,362 new confirmed cases, bringing the cumulative total to 971,018. The number of new confirmed cases first exceeded 10,000 on the 26th of last month with 13,009 cases, then rose to over 20,000 on the 2nd of this month (20,269 cases) just a week later. Since then, it surpassed 30,000 in just three days.

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