South Korea may treat COVID-19 like seasonal flu as severe cases drop

South Korea is reportedly planning to modify its present COVID-19 quarantine system and manage the virus like the seasonal flu after about two years of the pandemic. The news comes as the number of severe cases despite Omicron’s rapid spread.

The South Korean Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters stated that they would thoroughly examine the possibilities of changing to the entire medical system to that used for seasonal flu after assessing COVID-19’s fatality rate, severity rate, and the country’s healthcare capacity.

The South Korean authority is also ready to extend the social distancing regulations for two more weeks starting Monday. But given the drop in severe cases, the government intends to slowly lift the quarantine regulations and switch to a “living with COVID-19” scheme.

After surpassing the 10,000 mark for the first time on January 26th, the number of confirmed cases in South Korea recently crossed 30,000. However, the number of very ill patients has dropped to less than 200.

The confirmed cases daily count have also increased to 38,691 since the past 24 hours, although the number of critical patients remained at 272. The number of less critical patient also grew to 128,716 from 16,685 in the prior report.

On the matter, a professor of infectious disease at Soonchunhyang University Hospital Kim Tak stated that given the size of the Omicron epidemic, each person will require to share some degree of risk as well as focus on minimizing the damage. Individuals should also prepare in advance by understanding how to behave if infected given the fact that infection can occur at any time.

COVID-19 is likely to remain permanently as a disease that could be twice the burden of the seasonal flu. Support for hospital facilities, investments, and manpower will be needed to cope with the virus, the professor concluded.

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