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By Jun Ji-hye
Korea has not seen any explosive COVID-19 outbreaks since the government lowered its social distancing guidelines to the lowest level last week, but health officials remain vigilant against the "silent COVID-19 spread" by people who are unaware of their infected status and yet to be diagnosed.
According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), Wednesday, the country added 91 more COVID-19 cases, including 57 domestic infections, raising the total caseload to 25,424.
The country's daily new coronavirus cases have risen by double digits for the sixth straight day, but health authorities are raising concerns over virus spread by asymptomatic patients unaware of their infections, as this could lead to cluster infections at high-risk facilities such as nursing homes and hospitals.
The government lowered its three-tier social distancing guidelines to Level 1 from Level 2, Oct. 12, based on the belief that the country's virus situation had been showing signs of a slowdown.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, 10,541 random citizens underwent coronavirus testing preemptively from June 15 to Oct. 16. Among those, four tested positive, showing about a 0.04 positive rate.
The authorities said this showed that the silent spread by asymptomatic patients is ongoing.
"Four citizens tested positive for the virus by chance. This unexpected result showed that the silent spread is ongoing in local communities," Kwon Joon-wook, deputy director of the Central Disease Control Headquarters, said in a press briefing. "What we are most worried about is that the silent spread could cause group infections at high-risk facilities."
Kwon said stopping the silent spread is the "core task" of fighting the public health crisis, noting that it is also an urgent task to promptly identify virus patients at nursing homes and geriatric and psychiatric hospitals that house people who are especially vulnerable to the virus.
"People, especially young adults, should not regard their minor respiratory symptoms as a slight cold, but go through virus testing to help the health authorities find out infection routes at the earliest possible date," Kwon said.
As a precaution against further infections, the government began virus testing on about 160,000 inpatients and employees at geriatric and psychiatric hospitals in Seoul and the surrounding area, Monday.
Vice Health Minister Kim Kang-lip said the government will also inspect 1,476 geriatric and 423 psychiatric hospitals across the country, beginning Thursday, to check if those facilities are complying with anti-virus guidelines.
Such measures came as more than 70 patients have been infected at a geriatric hospital in Busan, and more than 60 at a rehabilitation hospital in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province.
Meanwhile, the daily new cases imported from overseas stood at 34, marking a sharp increase from 17 tallied the previous day. Among the 34, 22 were detected at airports or seaports, while 12 tested positive during their 14-day self-quarantine period.
By country, France took up 10 of the newly added imported cases, followed by Russia which accounted for eight patients.
