Always, select ” Most of the countries that are lying flat are concentrated in Europe and the United States, but the current situation is that some countries in Asia have begun to fall. For example, South Korea, which is adjacent to us, was inevitably forced to “lie down” in the wave of Omicron.
Remarkably similar to the UK, after laying flat, South Korea The fatality rate has plunged sharply, which has also aroused heated discussions among netizens. Unlike the United Kingdom, South Korea’s people’s livelihood was once poor behind such a fatality rate. In fact, it is a mirror for all other countries in the midst of the epidemic: What happens when a country chooses to tear down the epidemic prevention wall and lie flat.
It is worth mentioning that South Korea It has begun to gradually get out of the haze of the new crown: the isolation time of the confirmed patients will be shortened or completely lifted after the recent downward adjustment, and the infection risk of the new crown will be lowered, making it a second-class infectious disease, the same as chickenpox, tuberculosis, measles, etc.
Continued South Korea’s anti-epidemic measures “Refresh”, step by step toward “Lay Flat”
With regard to the new crown epidemic, South Korea has long had a tendency to “lie down”.
January 14, Korean Epidemic Prevention Department The number of days of home isolation was shortened from 10 days to 7 days, allowing patients diagnosed with Omicron mutated virus to be treated at home.
On February 18, South Korea announced that the closing hours of public facilities such as restaurants and cafes will be closed from 21:00 Extended to 22:00, private gatherings are limited to 6 people.
On March 5, the business hours of restaurants, cafes, etc. will be postponed to 11 p.m., mandatory vaccine pass measures abolition.
On March 21, the number of people for private gatherings will be relaxed from 6 to 8, restaurants, cafes, etc. It remains open until 23:00 every day.
On April 1, South Korea exempted all vaccinated persons from entry quarantine.
On April 4, the limit for private gatherings will be expanded from the current 8 to 10, restaurants, coffee The business hours of the hall and other halls have been postponed from 11:00 to 0:00.
Large-scale events, gatherings, and activities related to religious facilities will maintain the current response level, Monday and Wednesday. , The Central Disaster Safety Countermeasures meeting on Friday will be reduced to every Wednesday and Friday, and a number of control measures are being considered for cancellation.
Above, which is a recent trend in Korea Due to the various policies of “lying flat”, the current lying-flat model is still in the experimental period.
However, with the gradual relaxation of the epidemic prevention mechanism in South Korea, Here comes a more severe epidemic.
The assessment results of the risk level of the epidemic released by the Central Epidemic Prevention and Control Headquarters of South Korea on the 5th showed that the risk level of the new crown epidemic in the whole of South Korea last week (March 27-April 2) was the highest. The average daily number of new cases in China was 306,072, and the risk level remained at the highest level for 5 consecutive weeks (from February 27).
South Korea dies of new crown disease The rate has plummeted, but the reality is terrible
back to our original As a starting point, let’s take a look at South Korea’s new crown case fatality rate.
South Korea’s recent dramatic drop in fatality rate (Picture below), in January it was still 1%, but in February, it suddenly dropped below 0.2%, and recently it has been exaggerated to 0.09%, which is called a “miracle”.
South Korea’s recent case fatality rate chart Image taken from Our World in Data
Why are miracles in quotation marks? We will return to the case fatality rate for this question The root cause of diving. The infection fatality rate of the new crown depends on the number of deaths due to the new crown and the number of new diagnoses.
Review this formula —
See the figure above, that is, the numerator and denominator. When the numerator is relatively stable and the denominator increases significantly, the fatality rate will naturally plummet. .
Then let’s look at the denominator first, which is The number of infected people in South Korea.
image capture From Our World in Data
from above From the graph, the number of newly diagnosed cases in South Korea began to rise from February to mid-March, and then began to decline. It is not surprising to have such data behind the fatality rate diving.
In a little more detail, let’s compare the recent additions Number of confirmed cases (denominator) and new deaths (numerator):
< span>The picture above shows the number of new infections in South Korea (per million), and the picture below shows the number of new deaths from the new crown in South Korea (per million). The picture is taken from Our World in Data
Only looking at the trend seems to be consistent, but looking closely at the ordinate axis, it is obvious that every Among millions of people, the number of new deaths is still in the single digits, but the number of new infections has exceeded 1,000.
Therefore, the drop in the fatality rate in Korea is only because This is caused by the constant “water injection” of the denominator.
The current situation of the epidemic in South Korea : The funeral home needs to line up, and the medical system was once broken down
So, in During this period of time when the fatality rate continues to decline, what kind of life do ordinary people in South Korea live?
This article published in the Hankyoreh is actually translated as “Funeral homes are full due to the sharp increase in the number of deaths from the new crown“.
Since March, the number of deaths from the new crown has increased sharply, Seoul Memorial Park, the only funeral home in Seoul, and the Seoul Municipal Shenghuayuan in Goyang City have no vacancies for six consecutive days. Many family members wait five or six days.to hold a funeral.
Not only is it difficult for funeral homes to make appointments, but the Korean medical system is also Facing a crisis of paralysis.
Korea originally had a specialized hospital for COVID-19 patients, But now with the increasing number of confirmed cases, it has exceeded the capacity of specialized hospitals.
According to Kim Hyun-soo, director of Daegu Nursing Hospital, Daegu Nam-gu It is said that referral to specialized hospitals is meaningless, and the situation of patients who are sent to specialized hospitals will become worse, so nursing homes can only choose to manage themselves.
How is the Korean healthcare system? We still analyze this problem based on a picture.
Top left: the number of new infections in South Korea, top right: South Korea The number of hospitalizations due to the new crown, lower left: the number of new crown ICU (severe) patients in South Korea, lower right: the number of new deaths from the new crown in South Korea (unit: per million) Picture taken from Our World in Data
Recently, the number of infected people admitted to hospital due to the new crown in South Korea has remained high, and even severely ill patients It has been climbing without turning, which means that they need a large number of medical staff to support the operation of the medical system.
But in fact, medical staff have also fallen into self-defense situation.
According to the statistics of the health care union, only from 3 In the two days from January 21 to 22, about 6% of medical staff were quarantined due to confirmed new crowns, and the number of infected medical staff in some areas was almost half.
The shortage of medical staff in Korean hospitals is so severe that the government The solution to the crisis is not to recruit new medical staff, but to keep the medical system going by shortening the quarantine time of infected medical staff.
Shortening the isolation time of infected medical staff Does it also increase the risk of secondary infection?
Not only that, the Korean government has also introduced a new Regulations: Starting from March 25, people over the age of 60 who are infected with COVID-19 and who are diagnosed as COVID-19 patients through an expert rapid antigen test (RAT) in a community hospital cannot go to the hospital or undergo centralized management. Instead, do “self-treatment at home”.
Self-treatment at home? Isn’t this the same as letting them “follow themselves” at home? The target of this policy is the elderly group with lower immunity and more need of care.
Then this so-called “self-treatment at home” can relieve Medical stress? Can it have a positive impact on epidemic prevention?
We are directly on the picture-< /p>
From top to bottom, South Korea, Germany, Australia, France, Italy, United Kingdom , Vietnam, Japan and the United States of new confirmed cases (per million people), the picture is taken from Our World in Data
The picture selects the top nine countries in the world in terms of new coronavirus cases so far.
Zoom in – p>
The green line is In South Korea, after a series of lay-flat operations, the number of newly confirmed cases in mid-MarchTop in late.
Speaking of this, it is nothing more than that sentence, < strong>Laying flat has unpredictable casualties.
Look at South Korea, lower case fatality rate does not mean epidemic prevention The measures have been effective, mainly due to the large increase in the number of confirmed cases and a small increase in the number of deaths in exchange for a low case fatality rate. Fortunately, South Korea has begun to walk out of the haze of the new crown.
Through the mirror of Korea, we Let’s think about the current epidemic situation in the mainland. The good news in Shanghai is that asymptomatic infections account for most of the new additions, while there are not many confirmed cases, and very few patients with moderate or severe cases are diagnosed.(There is only one case at present. ).
Similarly, Shanghai is the most developed country in China A city with a permanent population of 25 million, the South Korean model is obviously not suitable for us. We need an epidemic prevention route suitable for our own situation, and try to minimize the cost of casualties.