Securing 1,100 Designated COVID-19 Beds... Over 6,800 Beds Available for 'General Admission'

Medical staff are caring for patients in the intensive care unit for severe COVID-19 cases at the National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital, a dedicated COVID-19 base hospital in Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] The government has decided to continue expanding general hospital beds for COVID-19 confirmed patients.

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters announced on the 5th that it received a report from the Central Accident Response Headquarters on the 'Status of Securing General Hospital Beds in Preparation for the COVID-19 Resurgence' and discussed it.

Earlier, in preparation for the COVID-19 resurgence, the government issued an administrative order on the 20th of last month to prepare 1,435 hospital beds nationwide for operation, and as of the day before, 1,100 beds had been designated.

Separately from the designated bed operation, the government established an integrated isolation management fee on the 22nd of last month to strengthen COVID-19 medical response capacity through the general medical system by supporting confirmed patients admitted to general beds instead of designated beds.

Accordingly, after surveying hospitals and bed capacities available for COVID-19 general beds through local governments, as of the 2nd, it was identified that a total of 326 hospitals nationwide can admit 6,829 COVID-19 patients for general hospitalization. Currently, 3,475 confirmed COVID-19 patients are hospitalized in general beds. The list of hospitals available for general bed admission can be checked on the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service website.

A Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters official said, "We will continue to expand hospitals capable of general admission so that COVID-19 patients can be admitted to community hospitals in a timely manner."

Meanwhile, at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters meeting on the same day, the status of facility quarantine inspections in the science and technology and information and communication technology (ICT) sectors by the Ministry of Science and ICT was also discussed.

The number of confirmed cases in the Ministry of Science and ICT and affiliated organizations increased from 301 in the first week of July to 1,203 in the fourth week of July.

The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to conduct prevention and quarantine inspections on major institutions operating multi-use facilities and quarantine-vulnerable facilities such as national science museums, mobile carrier call centers, and postal logistics centers, and designate a director in charge of quarantine for each affiliated facility.

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