Hundreds of small neighbourhood hospitals and clinics are being built in South Korea to treat the thousands of people who are likely to contract COVID-19 as a result of the omicron surge.
The preparations were announced on Friday, after daily cases in South Korea set a new high for the fourth day in a row. The 16,096 additional confirmed cases were more than double what was recorded on Monday. An omicron-driven surge, according to experts, may last for five to eight weeks, pushing daily instances to above 100,000.
Officials have hurried to reconfigure the country’s pandemic response, which includes increasing at-home treatments, shortening quarantine periods, and extending the use of fast testing kits while reserving lab tests for high-risk populations.
The country’s response to COVID-19 had primarily relied on large hospitals with superior technology and additional beds. Officials are now attempting to mobilise smaller hospitals and clinics in order to identify and monitor potentially tens of thousands of people who will be treated at home in the following weeks.
Given the rapidity with which omicron infections spread, Health Minister Kwon Deok-cheol stated that expanding outpatient treatment and concentrating critical resources on high-risk populations, such as persons in their 60s and older or those with pre-existing diseases, has become unavoidable.
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