While new COVID cases are coming down in Hawaiʻi and across the United States, they’re continuing to rise in a number of other countries. That includes South Korea — which has seen a week of grim developments.
It’s been a difficult couple of weeks in South Korea’s continuing battle with the pandemic.
New infections have quadrupled in that time — to a record of more than 54,000 on Thursday.
Daily records have been shattered four times in the past six days.
On Monday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged citizens to not have “excessive fear” about the situation — saying the current spike could be the “last hurdle” before returning to normalcy.
Up to now, South Korea has been relatively successful in dealing with the pandemic — maintaining an aggressive testing and tracing program and avoiding any national lockdowns.
This week the government has shifted its response to the virus — targeting those patients at high risk — the elderly and other vulnerable populations.
Contact tracing has been scaled back — and so have some quarantine rules.
People under 60 who test positive will stay home — and if they’re not showing symptoms after seven days they can return to work without a negative test.
Health officials expect cases to continue to rise — projecting they could reach 170,000 a day by the end of the month.
Roughly 86% of South Korea’s population have been fully vaccinated — and more than 55% have gotten booster shots.
