Current coronavirus wave expected to peak at end of this month

Women wearing face masks cross a road in downtown Seoul on August 21. Jeong Hyo-jin

The current wave of coronavirus is expected to peak at the end of August and become endemic at a similar level to last year, according to public health authorities.

The supply shortage of coronavirus treatments will be resolved to some extent early next week, as the treatments will be brought into the country more quickly and in larger quantities than originally planned.

“This year's summer wave is expected to peak at the end of August,” said Ji Young-mi, director of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), at a briefing on August 21. ”It's not at a level where we need to respond to the disease by re-introducing social distancing or raising the crisis level, but we believe it is manageable within the current healthcare system.”

The current wave of coronavirus began in late June and has seen a rapid increase in the confirmed cases in the past month. The number of hospitalized coronavirus patients increased six-fold from 226 in the third week of July to 1,366 in the second week of this month, according to the KDCA's sample monitoring of 220 hospital-level medical institutions. The KDCA attributed the increase to a combination of factors, including the low coronavirus vaccination rate for people aged 65 and over last winter due to much fewer cases, the lack of indoor ventilation in summer, and increased travel during the summer holiday season. The spread of the KP.3 variant, which has high immune evasion ability, has also increased the scale of the current wave. The KDCA decided to manage the wave within the current healthcare system, emphasizing adherence to quarantine rules without raising the crisis level. The current wave should not be viewed as a crisis situation such as the coronavirus pandemic from 2020 to 2022, but as part of the process of coronavirus becoming an endemic,” Ji said. “However, if we look at the mortality rate of the virus by age, it is less than 0.01 percent for those under 50 years old, which is not a big concern, but the mortality rate increases from 60 years old and above and rises sharply to 1.75 percent for those over 80 years old. What is important now is to protect high-risk groups, such as the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions, to minimize the health damage.”

The coronavirus treatment was supposed to be introduced for 140,000 people next week, but the schedule was advanced to bring 177,000 doses in on the 26th in consultation with global pharmaceutical companies. The additional supplies will be prioritized for high-risk groups. It was confirmed that 3.25 million self-test kits were produced at 10 domestic manufacturers from August 1 to 6 and have been distributed across the country. The KDCA said the production was 28 times higher than that of July (116,000) and three times higher than in April (1.1 million), when the production was the highest this year.

Vaccinations to prepare for a coronavirus wave in winter will begin in October. A vaccine that can respond to the new JN.1 variant will be introduced. The KDCA expected the JN.1 vaccine to be effective against the KP.3 variant as well, as it does not show major genetic differences from the JN.1 variant.

To prevent patients with mild coronavirus symptoms from being crowded in emergency rooms, the Ministry of Health and Welfare will seek cooperation from public hospitals, which were previously operated as hospitals dedicated to coronavirus in the past, to secure spare beds.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.