Eternal Good-bye after a Short Trip to Seoul: The First Case of COVID-19 in Wando, an Elderly Couple in a Remote Village

[경향신문]

On December 22, at a care facility in Buk-gu, Gwangju, a COVID-19 patient is being transported to a hospital. Sixteen people contracted the virus here and one died. Yonhap News

The elderly couple lived in a small village on an island. To get there, you have to board a ferry from the Wando Passenger Terminal in Wando-gun, Jeollanam-do and sail more than thirty minutes, then transfer to a rural bus. For the couple, COVID-19 was only an event that occurred in the TV news. But they made a short trip to Seoul for a doctor’s appointment and shared a meal with acquaintances. They were infected with COVID-19 and became the first cases of the virus in Wando. The wife, in her seventies, suffered from a chronic disease and eventually died. COVID-19 forever separated the couple who had shared a lifetime together.

The novel coronavirus has killed people in all corners of society. Many ended their lives from clusters of transmissions inside hospitals and care facilities, but there were also people who died after contracting the virus unawares from secondary, tertiary transmissions that started at religious facilities, demonstrations, clubs, and kimchi-making gatherings. Patients died in the blind spot of diagnostic tests. They died while looking after patients in the forefront. They died waiting for a hospital bed. They died alone with no family to look after them. And they were all our precious neighbors.

■ First Patient Who Died, Died Alone

The first patient who died from the novel coronavirus in South Korea was A (64), who died last February while hospitalized at the psychiatric ward of Daenam Hospital in Cheongdo, Gyeongsangbuk-do, where a cluster of transmissions occurred during the first wave of the outbreak. He showed symptoms of COVID-19, such as a high fever, just before he died. Health authorities confirmed A to be COVID-19-positive after a postmortem diagnostic test.

A had lived in Daenam Hospital for over twenty years, and he suffered from schizophrenia and chronic lung disease. An official from Cheongdo-gun said, “Most of the patients who died at Daenam Hospital had no surviving relatives and it is unclear as to when they were first admitted to the hospital.” He further explained, “We couldn’t find any surviving relatives of A, either, so the employees at the Cheongdo-gun Office organized his funeral.” A total of nine people died while being treated at Daenam Hospital, and among them seven were from the psychiatric ward. Most of them had no relatives and died a lonely death.

Heo Yeong-gu (61) was a physician who died after contracting COVID-19 while taking care of his patients. He was the first medical staff to die in South Korea. Heo died while undergoing treatment at a negative pressure ICU at Kyungpook National University Hospital on the morning of April 3, 2020. According to the health authorities, Heo came in contact with a COVID-19 patient during consultations on February 26, 2020. He contracted the virus after an incubation period. On March 18, two weeks before he died, he complained of COVID-19 symptoms, such as a fever and muscular pain, and got tested at a screening clinic at Kyungpook National University Hospital.

Heo, who had been suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and hyperlipidemia, was soon on a respirator and ECMO (a device that helps the heart circulate blood) and on dialysis, but he never made it. His colleagues remembered Heo as “a doctor of few words who quietly looked after his patients.” Lee Seong-koo, the chairperson of the Daegu Medical Association, who studied at the same alma mater as Heo--Kyungpook National University medical school--a year later said, “He was hardworking and usually went from his home to the hospital and back. He was willing to make sacrifices like no other person, tending to his patients even as the novel coronavirus spread.” Lee recalled, “He never once complained when he was alive. He was a man of few words who smiled often.”

In Gunpo, Gyeonggi-do, B, a worker in his sixties, died while waiting in his home after a case of COVID-19 was confirmed in the workplace where he was assigned. He was a worker of a subcontractor assigned to a leather factory in Gunpo-si, where over eighty people contracted the virus. The first case at that factory was confirmed on December 29. That day, the Gunpo Public Health Center tested all 31 people who came in close contact with the confirmed patient and confirmed that 21 of them were positive for the virus. The next day, the health authorities visited the factory and tested all 455 employees and workers who were assigned to the factory, but B did not go to work that day and never got tested. He was confirmed COVID-19-positive postmortem.

■ People Died While Waiting for Hospital Beds

The novel coronavirus even penetrated family kimchi-making gatherings, infecting an unspecified number of the public in all corners of the nation and even taking their lives. In Jecheon, Chungcheongbuk-do, a man in his sixties died just two weeks after testing positive for the virus last November. He is believed to have contracted the virus from his wife, who shared a meal with an acquaintance at a kimchi-making gathering. He was recorded as the first death in this region, and the cause was contagion that started from a kimchi-making gathering.

At Hyo Plus Care Hospital in Bucheon, Gyeonggi, 39 people died. This was the most number of deaths at a single location since the novel coronavirus entered the country. In particular, 27 patients died while waiting to be transported to a hospital dedicated to the treatment of COVID-19. Last month in Seoul, a man in his sixties living in Dongdaemun-gu died while waiting three days to be assigned a hospital bed after testing positive for COVID-19.

Thus, during the COVID-19 outbreak, many patients died while waiting in their homes to be assigned hospital beds, because of a lack of beds in Daegu and the Seoul metropolitan area. In Daegu, after a number of believers of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus contracted the virus last February, the number of deaths reached 198 (as of midnight January 5, Daegu). A representative of the Daegu Medical Association said, “When patients poured out at the end of last February and early March (in Daegu), about 20% of the initial 70 or so patients who died were never admitted to the hospital.”