Prime Minister Kim: "Expanding Use of Oral COVID-19 Therapeutics, Additional Supplies to be Procured"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Kim Hyewon] Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum stated on the 25th, "We will further expand the use of oral therapeutics, which have been confirmed to be effective in preventing severe cases and deaths in medical settings."

On the same day, Prime Minister Kim presided over the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters meeting for COVID-19 at the Government Sejong Complex and said, "The government is taking proactive measures to ensure that oral therapeutics are not in short supply."

Prime Minister Kim said, "We are advancing the delivery of the April supply initially agreed upon with Pfizer as much as possible, and we are in the final stages of contracting to bring in additional supplies in early April. Merck's oral therapeutics will also begin administration starting tomorrow." Merck's therapeutics are scheduled to be delivered with an additional 80,000 doses over the weekend following the 20,000 doses received the previous day. Pfizer's oral therapeutics have recently been administered to more than 7,000 people daily.

Prime Minister Kim assessed, "It requires a bit more confirmation whether the Omicron variant, which has continued for over two months, has definitively entered a decline phase, but we believe the critical point has passed. Considering that the impact of the infection spread continues for 2 to 3 weeks, efforts to reduce severe cases and deaths should rather be strengthened at this time."

He continued, "It is also important to secure the response capacity of public health centers, which serve as the frontline in field quarantine." He explained, "Since last week, PCR testing volume has decreased, creating some capacity, and more local governments are responding efficiently through personnel reallocation. The dispatch period for central government officials has also been extended by one month."

He added, "Some parts of society negatively evaluate the overall community quarantine efforts based solely on the recent surge in confirmed cases. I ask for an objective and comprehensive judgment based on the infection rate per population, death rate, cumulative fatality rate, and various economic indicators."

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