[Reporter’s Notebook] Government Claims ICU Beds Exist, but None Are Found on the Ground

On the 5th, medical staff were busy working at Hyemin Hospital in Gwangjin-gu, a dedicated COVID-19 hospital in Seoul. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency's Central Disease Control Headquarters announced that as of midnight, the number of critically ill patients decreased by 20 from the previous day to 953. This is the lowest number in 22 days since December 14 last year (906 patients). Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

"The healthcare system is currently operating within a manageable range. As the statistics show, there is about 40% capacity available in the overall intensive care units." (Son Young-rae, Head of the Social Strategy Division, Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, on the 8th)

"Many hospitalized patients who have no or mild Omicron symptoms still require treatment for underlying conditions. In this situation, a system that treats patients only in COVID-19 negative pressure rooms is unsustainable." (Lee Ki-il, First Controller of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, on the 11th)

The government changed its stance in just three days. They were confident they could respond to the increase in critically ill patients but ended up acknowledging the limits. The medical community has long warned about the shortage of intensive care beds and the poor conditions in medical facilities. However, the quarantine authorities consistently boasted that "if operations are optimized, up to 2,500 patients can be handled." Did the authorities think that even if COVID-19 patients increased, it would not affect general patients?

Medical sites are already complaining that the bed crisis experienced during the Delta variant surge last December is repeating. First, they believe the number of critically ill COVID-19 patients announced daily by the government is lower than the actual figure. This is because COVID-19 intensive care patients are excluded from the critically ill patient statistics once a certain period has passed since symptom onset and they are released from isolation.

There is also a gap between the number of beds and the actual situation on the ground. As of the 14th, the nationwide intensive care bed utilization rate was 66.8%, and excluding the metropolitan area, the rate in non-metropolitan regions rose to 74.5%. Typically, an intensive care bed utilization rate exceeding 75% is considered a warning sign, and over 80% is regarded as effectively saturated. Patients waiting for bed allocation are increasingly deteriorating to critical conditions. There is also a severe shortage of medical personnel and equipment to treat critically ill patients. If the daily confirmed cases reach an average of 350,000, the peak could come in 1 to 2 weeks with daily deaths reaching as high as 350 to 500.

"Where are the beds that the government says are more than half still available? The demand for beds will likely more than double from now on, and if those numbers are inflated, a serious crisis could occur." The warning from Professor Kim Tak of Soonchunhyang University’s Department of Infectious Diseases cannot be ignored.

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