From Today, Home Treatment Intensive Care Group Classification Abolished... Phone Monitoring Discontinued

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Young-won] Starting today, COVID-19 home treatment patients will no longer be separately classified as intensive management groups receiving telephone monitoring.

The government announced on the 1st that the revised home treatment system will be applied to COVID-19 confirmed cases from whom specimens are collected.

Previously, elderly people aged 60 and over and immunocompromised individuals were classified as intensive management groups for home treatment and received daily health monitoring calls, but from today, they will be managed as general home treatment patients.

Lee Ki-il, the first chief coordinator of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, said, "There was a suggestion that it would be better to have consultations and treatment within the general medical system during intensive management," adding, "If your condition worsens at night, you can call the 171 medical consultation centers installed in each city, county, and district, which operate 24 hours a day."

The authorities explained that this measure is due to changes in the quarantine system, such as securing face-to-face treatment infrastructure like one-stop clinics and activating prescriptions for oral antiviral drugs. The goal is to accurately assess patient conditions through face-to-face treatment and promptly administer therapeutics to prevent severe illness in high-risk groups such as the elderly and immunocompromised.

However, there are concerns that elderly people may find it more difficult than younger generations to obtain information about face-to-face medical institutions. The government is promoting access to one-stop clinic information, where COVID-19 testing, treatment, and prescriptions are provided in one place, through the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service website or portal site searches.

The government has added information related to face-to-face treatment to isolation notification texts sent to confirmed cases and plans to respond by distributing face-to-face treatment guides containing lists of one-stop clinics at public health centers and screening clinics.

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