Category: Korea-General Topics

All the best to this family in South Korea:

A 45-day-old baby has been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, health authorities here said Sunday, becoming the youngest patient in South Korea. 

Health authorities said the baby boy, born on Jan. 15, 2020, tested positive for COVID-19 after their parents had contracted the virus. 

According to the authorities, the baby’s father first tested positive for the novel coronavirus last Thursday.

The baby and her mother have entered self-quarantine at their house in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province, after doctors said they are in good condition. Health authorities said they will transfer them to a hospital after monitoring their health situation.

Korea Times

This news caused me to wonder how at risk children are to be infected with the coronavirus? Below is an excerpt from an interview the Harvard Gazette recently did with one of the university’s epidemiologists about this topic:

GAZETTE: What do we know about for sure about how children are affected by this virus?

LIPSITCH: We know that the cases of children sick enough to get tested is much lower per capita than those of adults. And we also know that, in China outside of Hubei province, the difference between children and adults is smaller. Children are still underrepresented, but they’re a larger part of the total than inside Hubei province. That would suggest that part of the equation is that they are getting infected but they’re not that sick — it’s easier to identify less-severe cases in a system that’s not overwhelmed as it is in Hubei. But we don’t know whether they’re infected and not as sick or whether there are a lot of kids that aren’t getting infected even when they’re exposed.

Harvard Gazette

Here is some more interesting information from the interview:

GAZETTE: You mentioned children having been hit only lightly by this. What about other parts of the population? What do we know about the impact of this from a demographic standpoint?

LIPSITCH: It’s definitely the case that the older you are, the more at risk of getting infected you are and, if you get symptomatic infection, the more at risk of dying you are. Men also seem to be overrepresented among those getting severe illness. The reasons why are a really important research question. One thing that also needs to be looked at is the impact on health-care workers because they are at high risk of getting infected, and I would like to know whether they’re at higher risk of getting severe infection. Some of the anecdotal cases of young physicians dying make me wonder whether they’re exposed to a higher dose and that’s making them sicker.

It appears that along with an elderly age and preexisting medical conditions, that men are more susceptible of being infected with the virus.

With news like this, people need to make sure they practice good hygiene when at Incheon International Airport:

A Chinese student who is self-quarantined at a dormitory associated with Catholic Kwangdong University has tested positive for coronavirus, the first Chinese citizen to do so on Korean soil. 

The school and the Gangwon Province government announced the case on Sunday. 

The student, 22, is being treated at Gangwondo Samcheok Medical Center. 

The student entered the country on Feb. 22 on a flight that left Shenyang Taoxian International Airport at 11:15 a.m. and landed at Incheon International Airport at 2:20 p.m. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The coronavirus continues to spread in South Korea, mostly from the Shincheonji church members that were exposed to it:

After the number of confirmed COVID-19 infections surged to nearly 4,000 Sunday, the government said it would revise virus-response measures to prioritize hospitalization of those with severe symptoms. 

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 here reached 3,736 with 20 reported fatalities as of 10 p.m., with the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and Daegu City Government reporting 731 additional infections.

Of the 731, more than 70 percent are linked to the Daegu branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. The KCDC said that the latest fatalities involved those who had been waiting to be hospitalized, while the 18th was a male Daegu resident aged 83 who had also suffered a stroke and had hypertension.

An 86-year-old woman, who had been in self-quarantine at her residence while waiting to be hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19, was transferred to a hospital early Sunday but died due to dyspnea, according to the Daegu City Government. She also suffered from diabetes and hyperlipidemia.

Another victim was an 80-year-old man who had been to a clinic in the neighboring county of Chilgok. The man, who also suffered from hypertension, tested positive Friday and had been hospitalized.

Korea Times

The fatalities continue to come from the elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions. Younger and healthier people seem to be able to recover from this virus.

Due to the spread of the virus, now 79 countries have travel restrictions in place on South Korea.

South Korea has reported 813 new cases bringing the total to 3,150 people infected, mostly in the Daegu area. This number is only going to continue to rise as more of the Shincheonji church members are tested. Of these cases 17 have died. Here is the most interesting news from the article:

The country also reported its first case of reinfection by the new coronavirus, with a 73-year-old woman testing positive for the novel coronavirus for a second time, even after being released from quarantine.

Yonhap

This seems potentially scary, but the article did not provide any context though on what this means. Here is an article I found that provides some context:

“Everyone, by the time they reach adulthood, should have some immunity to some coronavirus,” said Tim Sheahan, a coronavirus researcher at University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. But because it doesn’t last, older people can get reinfected. The elderly also have a higher death rate from coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS, a pattern 2019-nCoV is following.

“There is some evidence that people can be reinfected with the four coronaviruses and that there is no long-lasting immunity,” Dr. Susan Kline, an infectious disease specialist at of the University of Minnesota. “Like rhinoviruses [which cause the common cold], you could be infected multiple times over your life. You can mount an antibody response, but it wanes, so on subsequent exposure you don’t have protection.” Subsequent infections often produce milder illness, however.

The common-cold-causing coronaviruses are different enough that an infection from one won’t produce immunity to another. But the novel coronavirus overlaps enough with SARS that survivors of the 2002-3003 outbreak might have some immunity to the new arrival,  Sheahan said: “Is it enough to prevent infection? I don’t know.”

Stat News

The coronavirus is similar to the common cold virus to where people can build limited immunity, but can still catch it again; especially older people with weaker immune systems.

It seems that the coronavirus is following this same pattern. The article goes on to speculate that COVID-19 could go on and just become the fifth form of seasonal coronaviruses that appear during the colder months. However, according to the article there is much still unknown about this virus that requires further research.

It would be interesting to see complete statistics from South Korea in regards to the ages and health status of those infected with the coronavirus. That would help determine how much more older people and those with preexisting health conditions are at risk of contracting the virus than younger people.

Here is the latest on the coronavirus spread in South Korea:

South Korea’s confirmed cases of the new coronavirus approached 2,400, with an additional three deaths being reported, on Friday as the nation worked to aggressively counter the fast-spreading virus with extensive testing. Health authorities renewed calls for citizens to keep away from others and avoid mass gatherings such as religious services over the weekend.

The 571 new cases — the sharpest daily spike yet, outnumbering 327 new cases reported in China earlier in the day — brought the nation’s total infections to 2,337, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). Two days ago, the number of infections surpassed the 1,000 mark.

The latest fatalities all occurred in Daegu, 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, with the death toll here rising to 16. Health authorities said two of the latest victims posthumously tested positive for the virus, with one being confirmed on Feb. 23. All were women in their 60 through 90s, and were being treated at hospitals or in self quarantine when they died. Authorities said they are trying to determine the exact cause of their deaths. 

South Korea confirmed its first new coronavirus case from a Chinese woman from Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak, on Jan. 20. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I will ask the obvious question, why was a Chinese woman from Wuhan allowed into the country in the first place?

Here is the story of how patient 31 spread the coronavirus that has nearly sealed off Daegu from the rest of the country because of its spread:

Patient 31 first checked into the Saeronan Chinese Medicine Hospital on Feb. 7, complaining of headaches after being involved in a car accident the day before. According to the hospital, the patient didn’t have any record of traveling overseas nor any known contact with a coronavirus patient. She also didn’t have any fever, cough or respiratory symptoms.

On the third day of being hospitalized, the patient developed a fever and received a flu test, which came back negative, according to the hospital.

The next day, she left the hospital for two hours to attend a morning service at the Shincheonji church in southern Daegu, according to Korea’s CDC. It’s common in South Korea for hospital patients to come and go — even walking outside wearing hospital garb and wheeling intravenous drips alongside them.

The woman also had lunch with a friend at a hotel in eastern Daegu on Feb. 15 and attended another Shincheonji worship service on Feb. 16, the country’s health authorities said.

It wasn’t until Feb. 17, as her condition worsened and a scan showed signs of pneumonia, that doctors were prompted to test for the coronavirus. Ten days after Patient 31 first set foot in a hospital, her infection was confirmed after a diagnosis at a public health clinic.

Health officials in South Korea still don’t know how she was infected, and how she spread the virus to fellow Shincheonji members.

Bloomberg

You can read more at the link.

Of course numbers from China are unreliable, but if you believe the numbers, the spread of the coronavirus in South Korea is growing at a rate larger now than where it started:

South Korea reported yet another record spike of new cases of the novel coronavirus on Thursday, with most new infections identified in the hardest-hit city of Daegu as virus tests started on more than 210,000 members of a religious sect at the center of the epidemic.

The 505 new cases, marking the sharpest daily spike yet and outnumbering the 433 new cases reported in China, where the virus originated, earlier in the day, took the nation’s total infections to 1,766, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

A 75-year-old virus patient who is tied to the religious sect in Daegu died of respiratory failure earlier Thursday, bringing the nation’s death toll to 13.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but of the 505 new cases 422 of them were in Daegu and mostly tied to members of the religious sect that began the outbreak in the city.