[Corona Behind] Corona 2 years, is human death being respected?

※ 'Corona Behind' is a report by Park Soo-jin, a reporter from the Life and Culture Department of SBS Press Headquarters, who is running at the forefront of COVID-19 coverage.

Once a week, reporters Park's articles and thoughts that were not included in the article are released to readers.

[Editor's Note]

The scheduled press conference is at 11 am.

But it didn't start after 10 minutes.

The prepared speaker was in trouble.

A man standing quietly caught my eye among the people who were busy moving to fix the speaker.

Even though it is spring, under the bleak wind and cloudy sky, she was standing holding a sign saying, 'The government should not ignore the suffering of those who are seriously ill with COVID-19, the dead and their families'.

Next to her was a participant who appeared to be a bereaved family, shaking her shoulders and weeping nonstop.

The corners of her eyes, comforting him by holding his arm, suddenly became moist.

Zhang Joa lost his father to COVID-19 last February.

He is a nurse working at a screening clinic in Seoul.

He is at the forefront of the fight against Corona, but he has become a victim of the loss of a loved one to Corona.

It was only 20 days before his father passed away.

Those 20 days felt like a fleeting moment, “as if I had been in a car accident.”

Corona confirmed, hospitalization in intensive care unit, general ward order, and death.

“If I said I had cancer, it would be painful to fight the disease, but I think there was time to prepare for parting, but I didn’t have time for that.”

What makes Mr. Jang more cut off is that he doesn't even have time to use his hands,

My father had acute renal failure and had to undergo dialysis, but his father died without ever using the CRRT due to poor hospital conditions.

Seeing his father who suddenly left, Jang changed his mind, saying, "Corona is a dangerous infectious disease that can cause death in an instant."

And in the process, he said, there was no human respect that anyone deserved.

Dignity of the deceased replaced by numbers

Number of people who died from COVID-19 every day in the past week.

At 9:30 every morning, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces the Corona 19 status of the previous day as of 00:00 on the same day.

How many people have been confirmed, how many are in critical condition, and how many of them have died?

It is important to understand the exact meaning of the numbers.

Understanding the flow and context in the pouring numbers is an essential task for predicting and preparing for the spread of a trend in advance.

So, the government announcement data and subsequent media reports also say, 'How many more deaths than yesterday, what is the proportion of deaths among the total number of confirmed cases? Concentrate on the cognitive analysis of the 'reducing number' to do.

However, the number does not capture the tribute and condolences for the deceased, or condolences for the family who lost a loved one.

It is ironic, but when we compare the first corona death in Korea (March 20, 2020) and the present where there are about 400 deaths a day, the shock and fear of the first time has disappeared.

Every day I write articles that compare and analyze the number of corona confirmed cases, severe cases, and deaths, and I reflect that I have become very blunt.

Society is blunted, but the wounds of the bereaved are not blunted.

It's not just about the families.

There are also voices of concern that our society as a whole is losing the opportunity to fully commemorate and mourn in the face of death replaced by a single number.

"On March 21st, the Central News Agency announced that the weekly average of 321.9 deaths due to COVID-19 is. What does 0.9 death mean? I have expressed it. What is “only” 7.8% of deaths? Are these deaths that are nothing to worry about? Everyone has the right to a dignified death, and we all have to pay tribute to the deceased. We should be able to mourn and share our memories.”

(March 23, during the Corona 19 Human Rights Response Network press conference)

(*Prime Minister Kim Bu-gyeom at the main headquarters meeting on February 23rd said, "There have been 2 million confirmed cases over the past two years. Of these, 1 million have occurred in the last 15 days." The number should have been halved, but it is not. The death toll is only 7.8%.”

right to die in full

Even death requires courtesy.

Wiping the deceased's body clean and putting on a shroud at the funeral is an act of remembrance and mourning for those left behind, wishing that the deceased's final appearance will be the most beautiful and clean.

However, with 300-400 deaths per day during the Omicron pandemic, it is becoming difficult to maintain this courtesy.

Not long ago, I got a phone call from a funeral director.

He took a deep breath and said:

"I wonder if I would have contacted the media. No matter how much it was Corona, I thought it would not be a good thing. This is the first experience I have had while working here."

The funeral director sent me a picture I took myself.

The wooden coffins piled up like towers in the basement hallway stood out.

They said that it was left at room temperature because there was not enough room to keep it refrigerated.

The testimony of the funeral director is that he saw 15 piles piled up.

"It's been at room temperature for a few days, so it's decomposing. The smell is so strong that it's hard to get into the admission. I was trying to do salting a while ago, and the smell was so strong that I asked, 'Did a dead body come in?' If you think of them as my parents, really.." (Mr. A, funeral director)

There is not enough space for crematoriums due to the influx of deaths, so the bereaved family should be grateful just to be able to do cremation.

Because there are many dead bodies waiting because they cannot be cremated, there is a shortage of refrigerated morgues, and the number of dead bodies left at room temperature increases, leading to a vicious cycle.

On the 22nd, the government decided to apply the standard of operating 7 crematories per crematorium to all cremation facilities across the country in order to solve the phenomenon of cremation congestion.

Except for the metropolitan area and metropolitan cities, we have been operating 5 times per unit, but this has been increased overall.

It also recommended that all funeral homes accommodate funerals of those who have died from coronavirus, and that temporary burial spaces should be built.

However, the situation in the field is not getting much better.

Some crematoriums are unable to meet the influx of demand even if they operate 10 times per crematorium.

The right of the deceased to walk on the last path in their entirety, as beautiful and clean as possible.

That right is being pushed back more and more.

The right to do your best to live

Let me tell you a little bit more about the nurse Joah Jang introduced earlier.

His father's death itself is a wound that cannot be easily healed by Mr. Jang and his family, but what makes the wound more painful is the self-reproach that he did not do his best and the poorness of the corona medical field he suffered directly for 20 days. .

"I had to come out of the Corona ICU after 10 days. I asked for more time, but the hospital told me that if I don't go because of the government's administrative order, I can't get support and I have to pay a fine. ."

My father took off the ventilator while moving to the general ward.

Because it was a general ward, there were no intensive care equipment such as a ventilator, and even if they brought it, there were no medical staff who could handle it.

Dialysis could not be performed because there was no CRRT, and the potassium level eventually increased, leading to cardiac arrest.

Jang learned all this only after visiting his father's deathbed.

“There were only two nurses in the room where my father was. There were no ventilators or CRRTs, and there were no medical staff who could handle them. It’s like that in Edo. I believed that and didn’t think of moving to a university hospital… I regret it the most. If I had moved my father to a university hospital, I would have lived.”

To improve the efficiency of beds for critically ill patients, the government is taking measures to release quarantine after 7 days after sample collection, regardless of symptoms.

Although the number of patients with severe cases is increasing, there is a limit to the capacity of the bed, so after a week when the transmission of the infection decreases, the quarantine is lifted from the corona intensive care ward and goes to a general ward or general intensive care unit.

Efficiency of the bed is also necessary, but the doctors of patients and their families are not fully taken into account in this process.

In the end, I am left with such regrets and regrets.

'If I had received more adequate treatment, I would not have recovered or would have been able to live.'

Jang's father was not included in the corona death statistics.

Because he died after being released from quarantine.

"A family has collapsed. My mother has a phobia of people and she still can't enter the bedroom. It must be hard to see because the bed, mattress, and father's seat are still there. When I see it, does it stop my tears? I test it with tears."

On the 24th, the daily death toll from Corona was 469, the highest one-day death toll since the outbreak of the corona virus in Korea.

So far, the cumulative death toll is about 14,000, and the fatality rate is 0.13%.

The government says the death toll is rather stable compared to the spread of Omicron.

It's not wrong.

The cumulative number of confirmed cases is much lower than in the United States (1 million) and the United Kingdom (about 160,000).

Based on the cumulative number of confirmed cases, Korea has the lowest level among countries caught in the statistics.

The fatality rate is also about 1/9 compared to 1.2% in the United States.

However, it is also true that in recent years, the average number of confirmed cases per 1 million people per week and the number of deaths per day is ahead of the United States, which is the number one cumulative death toll.

It is for this reason that concerns about an increase in the number of deaths have grown recently.

The government is paying close attention to the fact that the number of deaths is higher compared to the increase in the number of severe cases.

In the end, depending on which indicator is viewed based on which period, the number may appear large or small.

This is also why it is difficult to argue the severity of death in terms of numbers.

Reducing the number of deaths by rapidly diagnosing and treating high-risk and critically ill patients that can lead to death is the most self-explanatory and most important thing.

However, along with this, it seems necessary to consider and discuss the dignity of the corona deceased and the deceased and their families.

Corona 2 years, maybe we just put those worries back too far.

(Reporter: Park Soo-jin, PD: Kim Do-kyun, Illustration: Kim Jeong-yeon, Producer: D Content Planning Department)