Today (20th), the government diagnosed that the spread of BA.5 in the sub-system of Omicron is progressing faster than expected, and came up with additional measures against the outbreak, such as securing more than 4,000 beds.



Lee Ki-il, the first general coordinator of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare), said, "The number of confirmed cases at the peak is expected to increase to about 300,000," he said at the main meeting held at the government complex in Seoul on the same day. announced.



First, we have decided to expand the number of 'one-stop medical institutions' that can handle everything from COVID-19 diagnostic tests to treatment and prescription from the current 6,500 to 10,000 this month.



We will secure an additional 4,000 beds for COVID-19 so that we can respond even if there are 300,000 confirmed cases a day.



To this end, the government preemptively issued an executive order on 1,435 beds on the same day, and decided to restart the beds in stages according to the bed utilization rate.



We will also strengthen the management of nursing hospitals and facilities and mental hospitals and facilities.



We decided to conduct a PCR test once a week for all workers in the facility and block external infection factors by only allowing non-contact visits instead of face-to-face visits that are currently allowed.



In addition, the 'Fast-Track' application, which is currently for the elderly over 60 years of age, immunocompromised, and residents of nursing hospitals and facilities, has been expanded to include patients with underlying diseases and residents of psychiatric hospitals and facilities for the disabled. made it possible



In the second half of this year, it is decided to introduce an additional 940,000 doses of treatment for COVID-19, including 340,000 doses and 600,000 doses in the first half of next year.



Temporary screening clinics, which were reduced to four nationwide as of the 18th, will be expanded again.



The plan is to install and operate 55 temporary screening and inspection stations in the metropolitan area and 15 in non-metropolitan areas, and expand weekend inspections so that people can easily receive inspections.



We also plan to strengthen the supply and demand management of diagnostic kits.



The smartphone application (app) allows convenience stores nationwide to check the status of diagnostic kit holdings in real time, and allows them to be sold at all convenience stores by temporarily exempting the diagnosis kit sales business report until September 30.



The general coordinator said, "Today, the number of confirmed patients at 00:00 is in the late 70s, which is almost double that of last week."



In addition, the infection reproduction index was 1.58 as of the 2nd week of July, maintaining above 1 since the last week of June, "This indicates that COVID-19 is spreading." The .5 mutation has virtually become the dominant species.”



However, it is said that the hospital bed operation rate is 25.5%, which can be afforded by the current medical duties of the government, and that it can handle up to 850,000 PCR tests a day.