S. Korea expects to see Thursday's caseloads hover in 400-thousand range

오후 9시까지 전국서 38만277명 확진…어제보다 9만4999명 적어 We start with the COVID-19 situation here in Korea. After seeing the second-highest daily tally on Wednesday,... we're expecting to see figures slightly come down today. But it won't be a significant drop... as the WHO has evaluated South Korea to have added the world's most amount of new COVID-19 cases for three STRAIGHT weeks. For more, we turn to Shin Ye-eun, who is joining us in the studio. Good morning, Ye-eun. Good morning. Ye-eun, start us off with the number of new infections we're expecting for this Thursday. Sure Mok-yeon. South Korea expects to see Thursday's COVID-19 caseload hover in the 400-thousand range. By 9 pm Wednesday,... the country had already logged 380-thousand 2-hundred 77 infections. This is a drop of roughly 95-thousand from the same time the day before... but it's still a high six-digit figure in this Omicron wave of the pandemic. In fact, the WHO named South Korea the country to have recorded the highest number of new COVID infections in the world for three weeks straight. In a report on Wednesday,... the global health body said the world added more than 12.3 million new cases from March 14th to 20th,... which was a 7 percent jump from the week before. And South Korea took up more than 2.8 million of those cases,... which was the largest amount of all countries. We're hoping to see figures come down soon,... especially since Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum on Wednesday said the next two weeks would work as a turning point in overcoming the pandemic. To get the COVID-19 figures down, though... more support is needed on the medical front. That's right. Since the Omicron surge,... we've seen the death toll climb quickly. From March 11th to 17th,... which is less than a week,... we've seen more than 2-thousand deaths. And the number of critically ill patients has remained in the 1-thousands for weeks. That's why many medical workers say that they've already reached a limit. What's concerning is that this is DIFFERENT from what we've been hearing from authorities. Authorities have said our current medical capacity is under control... and that we're doing a much better job managing patients compared to the Delta surge... as we have some 30 to 40 percent of hospital beds LEFT OVER. But... many in the field... have pointed out that the government's method of evaluating the country's medical capacity... SHOULDN'T be based on the NUMBER OF HOSPITAL BEDS available for COVID-19 patients. This is because authorities have decided to transfer critically ill COVID-19 patients to regular hospital rooms after a week. These patients aren't included in the country's total severely ill case count. In other words,... MEDICAL WORKERS say... that the number of patients they're required to look after IS MUCH HIGHER THAN the government's OFFICIAL COVID TALLY ANNOUNCEMENTS. Take a listen to the Chungnam National University Hospital branch director from the Korean Health and Medical Workers' Union. "We're trying to prevent the situation from worsening... but we've reached a limit. Our emergency rooms have partially closed COUNTLESS times. I don't know how we came this far with so many crises." How are authorities trying to address this? To relieve the burden on hospitals providing monitoring and phone counseling to those recovering at home and classified as the "intensive management group," ...AUTHORITIES have decided to NARROW DOWN who is eligible for these services. The country has some 270-thousand people in the intensive management group who receive two daily health checks from medical staff. They are seniors aged 60 and up... and the immunocompromised. But from Friday,... this age group and people with weak immunity will be placed under the "standard management group" ...IF THEY TEST POSITIVE through a rapid antigen test at local hospitals. This means... this group won't be able to receive CONSTANT MONITORING or two daily checkups via phone call. But... like others in the standard management group,... they will be able to get prescription medicine after calling nearby hospitals... IF NEEDED. Those over 60... can also get prescribed Paxlovid... and even ask to be treated under the "intensive management group" if they wish. Also... the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters proposed on Wednesday... to give out incentives to medical clinics or hospitals treating COVID-19 patients. They said... when these hospitals are up for evaluation... depending on how effectively they take care of patients in emergencies,... they can get plus points. Thank you for your report as always. We will see you on Friday. #COVID19 #SouthKorea #Omicron 📣 Arirang News(Facebook) :   / arirangtvnews   📣 Arirang News(Twitter) :   / arirangtvnews   📣 News Center(YouTube) :    / newscenter_arirangtv   2022-03-24, 08:00 (KST)