Category: Korea-General Topics

Condolences to the friends and families of these firefighters:

Three firefighters that went missing Thursday at the scene of a fire in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi, were found dead Thursday afternoon.   
   
Two were found at 12:22 p.m. on the second floor of a seven-story refrigeration warehouse construction site and the other at 12:41 p.m. nearby, according to the fire department.   
  
Communication with the three was cut off around 9 a.m. after they searched for people inside the construction site for about an hour. Two other firefighters with them got out and were sent to the hospital for smoke inhalation.  
   
The three were found with emergency safety equipment including an air tank that could last up to 50 minutes. They are believed to have been trapped by flames. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Hagwon owners are probably breathing a sigh of relief right now because the vaccine requirement was probably going to put many of them out of business:

South Korea on Tuesday suspended the vaccine pass mandate for cram schools and other private education facilities following a court ruling that the system infringes on people’s right to learn.

The Seoul Administrative Court ordered the suspension of a rule that requires adults to show proof of vaccination before accessing private institutes, public study rooms, study cafes and vocational training institutions, pending a trial on a complaint that parents and the industry have filed against the measure.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Korean government plans to appeal the court ruling and force hagwons to require COVID vaccinations for its students.

The Omicron is coming:

Health authorities and experts are warning of another upsurge of COVID-19 infections in the spring months due to the fast spread of the omicron variant. 

Park Hyang, a senior official of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA), at a regular media briefing on Tuesday said expectations are that the nation will not be able to deal with the omicron strain in the same way it did with the delta, given the sheer speed at which omicron spreads. 

Accordingly, Park said, officials are considering changes to the current COVID-19 testing systems, and not ruling out the possibility of allowing small-size medical clinics to treat COVID-19 patients, given a possible spike in mild COVID-19 patients. 

KBS World

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting t see how this lawsuit turns out:

 Over 1,000 people have jointly filed a lawsuit against the government’s requirement of presenting proof of vaccination in multiuse facilities on concerns over discrimination against unvaccinated people, sources said Sunday. 

A total of 1,023 plaintiffs filed the suit Friday with the Seoul Administrative Court against Health Minister Kwon Deok-cheol, Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong, and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon to challenge the so-called vaccine pass.

Under an administrative order, people are required to present their vaccine records when entering restaurants, cafes theaters, cram schools and other indoor multipurpose facilities. 

Unvaccinated people must show negative COVID-19 test results issued within 48 hours in order to use such facilities. 

The plaintiffs, including doctors, accused the government of forcing people to get vaccine jabs by barring unvaccinated people from much of public life and requested an injunction to nullify the administrative order. 

“The government is effectively forcing people to get COVID-19 vaccines that lack clinical trials by imposing serious restrictions on unvaccinated people in their use of public facilities,” the petition said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

In South Korea those without a booster shot are essentially being treated as being unvaccinated now:

Proof of vaccination required for access to multiuse facilities will be valid only for six months after the primary series or booster doses starting Monday, health authorities said as they seek to stem the latest upsurge in virus cases.

Under the tightened measure, those who completed the primary series on July 6 last year or before will not be allowed to use those facilities starting Monday if they are not administered with a booster shot, officials said.

The so-called vaccine pass is required for people to enter restaurants, cafes, theaters, cram schools and other indoor multipurpose facilities. The measure will be applied to department stores and large discount store chains Jan. 10. 

Unvaccinated people should present negative COVID-19 test results that were issued within 48 hours in a bid to use such facilities. The government plans to adopt the pass system for youths in March after a one-month grace period.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but it looks like getting a booster shot every six months could become the new normal in South Korea.

I still believe we need to shift our thinking from COVID case counts to critical hospitalizations because the vaccines and prior infections are significantly reducing hospitalizations and deaths:

Daily COVID-19 cases fell to the three-thousand range for the first time in four weeks, but the number of critical cases remained above one-thousand for over a week.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Tuesday that three-thousand-865 new infections were reported throughout the previous day, raising the accumulated caseload to 615-thousand-532. 

The daily figure dropped to the three-thousand range for the first time since November 30. It fell by about 340 from a day ago and over 13-hundred from a week ago. The fall is likely due to more booster shots and stepped-up social distancing rules. 

However, the number of patients in serious or critical condition rose by 24 from the previous day to one-thousand-102, the second highest tally to date. The number remained above one-thousand for the eighth consecutive day. 

KBS World

You can read more at the link, but when the metric of COVID effectiveness is 1,102 people in serious conditions at the hospital in a country of over 50 million it doesn’t appear to be as bad. It would be interesting to see how the 1,102 number compares to other hospitalizations such as car accidents, heart attacks, etc. to provide further context for decision makers.

The article also stated that total death is at 5,346 and that is a .87 death rate. That means people infected with COVID in South Korea have less than 1% chance of dying from the disease. Once again some useful context would be how does that percentage compare to other leading causes of death in South Korea?