Welfare Minister: "Securing Beds Centered on Public Hospitals"

As the medical gap continues for a long time and COVID-19 is spreading again, health authorities are securing hospital beds mainly in public hospitals.

On the 16th, Cho Kyu-hong, Minister of Health and Welfare, said at the joint hearing of the National Assembly's Education Committee and Health and Welfare Committee in the afternoon, "The trend of COVID-19 spreading in the summer has been repeated," and "It is expected that the number of patients will increase until September."

He added, "The proportion of severe patients is not that high yet," and "The impact on the medical system is not significant yet." However, Minister Cho said that they will monitor the situation closely, considering that the medical system could be burdened depending on the progression.

The authorities are preparing measures such as securing available beds mainly in public hospitals. Some on-site reports point out shortages of oral COVID-19 treatments like Paxlovid and Lagevrio, as well as diagnostic kits. There are 110,000 doses of treatment available, and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) announced plans to secure an additional 260,000 doses.

According to the 'Infectious Disease Sentinel Surveillance Weekly Newsletter' released by the KDCA, the number of new COVID-19 hospitalizations in the 32nd week of this year (August 4?10) was 1,359. This is a 54.8% increase compared to the previous week (878).

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