Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Korea bracing for possible mass infection at hospital
Medical personnel wait to be tested for COVID-19 at a screening center in Samsung Medical Center, southern Seoul, Tuesday, as four nurses working at the hospital tested positive. /Yonhap
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
Korea is possibly facing another COVID-19 infection cluster, this one related to a major hospital in Seoul after four nurses there tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the Seoul mayor, Tuesday.
Mayor Park Won-soon said four nurses working at Samsung Medical Center (SMC) in southern Seoul, one of the nation's biggest general hospitals, tested positive.
The four nurses work at SMC's cardiothoracic and ob-gyn operating rooms. Park said the hospital reported the infection of the first nurse Monday, and three others who tested positive were reported the following day. Of 277 patients and hospital staff who had been in contact with them, 265 have been tested. Among these, 160 tested negative and 102 are awaiting the results.
“It is a highly serious situation that infections have appeared in a large hospital with many severely ill patients as well as patients having underlying conditions. An epidemiological investigation is underway to determine the source of the infection,” Park said during a press briefing Tuesday.
Korea reported 13 new COVID-19 infections Monday, bringing the total to 11,078, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). Of them, nine were local infections. The number of cases tied to bars and clubs in Itaewon has reached 187 as of Monday.
Despite the downturn in nightclub-linked infections, health authorities have remained vigilant against further infection clusters.
According to the Gangnam District Office, where the hospital is located, the infection routes for the cases remain unknown as the first infected nurse neither visited Itaewon clubs nor came into contact with visitors to the neighborhood. The hospital has closed down 25 operating rooms on the third floor of its main building and will not treat outpatients for the next three days as a part of precautionary measures, the office said.
Health authorities have been paying keen attention to the infections between nurses in the hospital as the SMC was at the epicenter of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2015. Among a total 186 MERS patients here of the year, nearly half were infected either directly or indirectly via the SMC. Some 6,000 people were quarantined nationwide until the nation was declared MERS-free at the end of 2015, almost eight months after the first case was reported.