South Korea And Germany Witnessing Increasing Omicron Deaths And Hospitalizations.

The situation in South Korea and Germany seems to be fast accelerating towards a point of catastrophe as despite claims by so called ‘experts’ who said that the Omicron variant and its emerging subvariants are mild, hospitalization and death rates are fast increasing and already both countries are witnessing a collapse of their public healthcare sector.


 
South Korea
 
In the last 24 hours (Thursday), South Korea reported yet another breaking record of than 621,266 new infections, underscoring a massive omicron surge that has been worse than feared and is causing the over-stretched hospital system to buckle.
 
What is worse is that the country also reported 429 COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours and their own health authorities have confessed that due to reporting flaws, the death rates dues to COVID-19 in the country could be far higher in the last 14 days!
 
The COVID-19 deaths reported in the latest 24 hours were nearly 140 more than the previous one-day record set on Tuesday. Fatalities may further rise in coming weeks considering the intervals between infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
 
The reported 621,266 new coronavirus cases were also a record daily jump, shattering Wednesday's previous high of 400,624. That pushed the national caseload to over 8.2 million, with more than 7.4 million cases added since the start of February 2022!
 
Almost another 2478 individuals needed urgent hospitalization in the last 24 hours but only a few managed to actually get hospital beds!
 
The COVID-19 outbreak has been significantly bigger than what had been forecast by government health authorities, who still stupidly maintain that omicron is nearing its peak.
 
South Korean health officials have tried to calm public fears amid concerns about a faltering pandemic response, by making fake statements that omicron is no more deadly than seasonal influenza for vaccinated individuals and less dangerous than the delta strain that hit the country hard in December and early January.
 
Statistical data is however contradicting these statements as a large proportion of all those hospitalized and dying are the fully vaccinated!
 
South Korea has a large population that is fully vaccinated and more than 68% of the population having received booster shots.
 
Despite all these, there are currently no hospital or ICU beds available and the waiting lists for hospitals is now in the thousands and the same goes for ICU wards as more and more people are developing disease severity.
 
Some experts however say health officials clearly underestimated how the greater scale of outbreak would strain worn-out hospital workers who had just wiggled out of the delta surge. They criticize the government for sending the wrong message to the public by easing social distancing restrictions and effectively communicating that omicron is mild.
 
Furthermore, it was said that transmissions were probably worsened by an intense presidential campaign leading up to last week's election, which also appeared to have reduced political capacity to maintain a stringent virus response.
 
A senior Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency official, Dr Lee Sang-won, told Thailand .news/">Medical News that health authorities feel "apologetic" over the explosion of omicron cases that has been bigger than they expected.
 
He further said around 70,000 of the new cases reported Thursday were infections that were mistakenly omitted from Wednesday's tally, and that the real daily increase would be around 550,000.
 
Dr Lee said the country's recently revamped testing regime, now centered around rapid antigen tests to save laboratory tests for high-risk groups, is contributing to the rise in daily cases by casting a broader net to detect infections among the population.
 
South Korean health officials also said that the highly transmissible omicron subvariant known as BA.2 seems to be driving up infections. About 26% of the country's recent cases have been linked to BA.2, up from around 17% last month. There is also emerging data that newer BA.2 subvariants with additional unique mutations could be at play.
 
The Omicron variants have forced South Korea to abandon a stringent COVID-19 response based on mass laboratory tests, aggressive contact tracing and quarantines to focus limited medical resources on priority groups, including people 60 and older and those with preexisting medical conditions.
 
Government officials have recently significantly eased quarantine restrictions and border controls and stopped requiring adults to show proof of vaccination or negative tests when entering potentially crowded spaces like restaurants so that more public and health workers could respond to rapidly expanding at-home treatments.
 
It was also reported that nearly 2 million virus carriers with mild or moderate symptoms have been asked to isolate at home to save hospital space.
 
Germany
 
German health authorities reported a record number of new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, propelling the infection rate to a new high for the sixth straight day and raising alarm ahead of plans to lift almost all remaining curbs this weekend.
 
It was reported that in the 24 hours through early Thursday, there were 298,600 new COVID-19 infections, the most since the pandemic began two years ago, according to data from the RKI public-health institute. The seven-day incidence rate per 100,000 people has been climbing since the beginning of this month and is now at 1,651.4, the RKI said.
 
Also, about 282 COVID-19 deaths were also reported in the last 24 hours.
 
Just like South Korea, there are no more hospital beds in Germany and ICU wards are simply overcrowded with long waiting queues.
 
Many Germans are being asked to go to neighboring countries like France, Switzerland and Spain for hospital beds.
 
It was reported that Chancellor Olaf Scholz is due to hold talks with regional leaders on pandemic strategy later on Thursday, with Russia’s war on Ukraine also on the agenda. While there is little appetite to reimpose nationwide restrictions as long as hospitalization rates remain in check, some of the 16 state premiers are unhappy with the rapid pace of unwinding. The lower house of parliament is due to approve the legislation loosening measures on Friday.
 
Germany hasn’t experienced the steep drop in transmission seen in other countries, such as the U.K. and the U.S. Daily deaths from COVID are still around 250 to 300 people and at the same time, the number of COVID cases in intensive care units are ever increasing despite local media saying otherwise.
 
Just like South Korea, the rising infection numbers are partly due to the spread of the highly infectious BA.2 subvariant of the omicron strain. It now accounts for about half the COVID cases in Germany, according to the RKI.
 
The vaccination campaign in Germany has ground to a halt in recent months, and lawmakers in the Bundestag will later on Thursday debate proposals for introducing mandatory COVID shots.
 
It was reported as of Wednesday, about 76% of the population were already inoculated against the virus.
 
Just like South Korea, there are also reports of emerging BA.2 subvariants spotting new mutations.
 
It is highly anticipated that both South Korea and Germany will witness increasing infection and hospitalization rates along with increased mortality as more occurrences of coinfections and reinfections will come into play with the newer emerging BA.2 subvariants.
 
For the latest South Korea And Germany COVID-19 News keep on logging to Thailand Medical News.