Lee Hae-rin is a City Desk reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues, tourism and taekwondo. She is passionate about speaking up for the rights of minorities, including women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and animals as well as discovering the latest makgeolli trend in town. Feel free to reach her at lhr@koreatimes.co.kr.
Fears of lengthy COVID-19 resurgence loom large
People receive COVID-19 tests at a temporary testing center in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, Thursday. Due to the COVID-19 resurgence, the city reinstalled temporary testing centers that had been closed for 70 days. Yonhap
By Lee Hae-rin
By Lee Hae-rin
Local experts forecast that the current COVID-19 surge may ― rather than dropping sharply after peaking, which is expected to occur by the end of this month ― take a long time to decline.
“After reaching a peak by the end of this month, the COVID-19 resurgence this time may leave a prolonged course of transmissions instead of showing a sharp decline,” Kim Woo-joo, a professor of infectious diseases at Korea University Guro Hospital, said Sunday.
Kim explained that the number of people taking COVID-19 tests has gone down due to it being the peak summer vacation season, accompanied by the long weekend with the National Liberation Day on Monday, Aug. 15. Also, flood damage from the devastating torrential rains around the country last week has made getting tested immediately, more difficult.
Choi Won-suk, a professor of infectious diseases at Korea University Ansan Hospital agreed with Kim and explained that it could take some time for the country to flatten the current curve after reaching its peak.
Although the number of daily infections may not see another dramatic surge in the coming weeks, people's perceptions of the coronavirus have changed a lot, Choi said, and the actual number of infections could be greater than what is being reported, as more people see the virus as less fatal and neglect getting tested.
As daily caseloads have climbed, the health authorities have changed their predictions about the extent of the current wave twice.
Last month, the government predicted Korea could see up to 280,000 new COVID-19 infections per day by the end of this month when the current wave reaches its peak. Then earlier this month, the government cut its forecast to 150,000 cases per day and then raised it back to 200,000 last week, saying, “The pandemic may last longer than expected.”
In response to the increasing number of infections, the authorities set up testing centers across the nation again, as well as ordered the distribution of self-testing kits at convenience stores again.
According to the latest model forecasting the spread of the coronavirus here by the National Institute for Mathematical Sciences (NIMS) released on Wednesday, the current surge is predicted to reach its peak around the end of this month with the number of new infections ranging from 200,000 and 300,000 per day and then seeing a gradual decline after that.
Experts pointed out that reinfections have also been on the rise. Those who were infected with one Omicron subvariant during the last wave, which peaked in March, can be infected with another subvariant. They showed that immunity to the virus due to previous infection is fragile and wanes quickly.
According to Kim, the current wave could greatly intensify at any time if the number of daily infections continues to increase heading towards fall. Thus, he warned people to not let down their guard during the current wave, alarmed by the case of Iceland where the reinfection rate has reached 15 percent.
According to the KDCA's analysis of reinfection cases, the country's reinfection rate stands between 5 to 6 percent as of the end of July.
Meanwhile, the Central Disease Control Headquarters announced that the number of critical cases had reached a record in 107 days at 512. The majority ― 87.9 percent, or 450 ― of these cases are from people aged over 60.
The country reported 119,603 new infections today, Sunday, bringing the total caseload to 21,355,958. The figure is smaller than 124,592 from the day before, Saturday, but 1.6 times greater than 105,507 of two weeks ago.