No Hospital Beds for COVID-19 Patients: Families Risk Life with COVID-19-Positive Members

[경향신문]

Despite tighter physical distancing, the novel coronavirus is spreading at a faster pace in the Seoul metropolitan area. The previous day, over five hundred new cases were confirmed in the greater Seoul area, a record since the COVID-19 outbreak first began in the nation. Hospitals have already exceeded their intensive care unit (ICU) capacity and are also running out of general beds. In Gyeonggi-do, some patients have to wait 3-4 days to be assigned a hospital bed.

According to the Central Quarantine Headquarters on December 9, 686 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed the previous day. This was the biggest number since February 29 (909), when the first outbreak peaked.

The situation is putting our medical system into overload. Just like in the Daegu, Gyeongsangbuk-do area in February and March, some patients have to wait at home for 2-3 days after they are confirmed COVID-19-positive to get treatment. According to the specific status of confirmed patients in Gyeonggi-do on December 9, the status of patients who were confirmed positive for the novel coronavirus on December 6-7 was still stated as “waiting for hospital beds” or “scheduled to be put under quarantine.” Lim Seung-kwan, the director of the Gyeonggi Provincial Medical Center Anseong Hospital said, “Since last Saturday, elderly patients, people with underlying conditions, and even people with serious symptoms, who should naturally be admitted to hospitals have had to wait 1-2 days before being hospitalized.”

In Seoul, of the 214 patients who were newly confirmed positive for COVID-19 on December 7, only a third were hospitalized the day they were confirmed, and the rest had to stand by to be assigned hospital beds.

A red light has already gone on for beds in the ICU. As of the previous day, only 7.9%, 43 of all 546 ICU beds, including ICU beds nationwide and ICU beds exclusively for COVID-19 patients, were immediately available for patients. But given the preparation of the medical staff on site, the actual number of beds immediately available is much smaller, so patients in the Seoul metropolitan area cannot move into the ICU immediately. The government plans to increase an additional 154 ICU beds by the end of this month and will secure three more living treatment centers for general patients confirmed COVID-19-positive.

Health authorities plan to install temporary screening centers in over 150 locations including universities and Seoul Station, where young people gather, in order to contain the spread of the virus in the Seoul metropolitan area. At an emergency meeting at Cheongwadae, Jung Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said, “We will allow people to get tested anonymously regardless of their epidemiological connection with only their personal cell phone numbers, and prevent people from avoiding tests for fear of being stigmatized.”