COVID patients in 50s with pre-existing conditions should treat at home

Confirmed COVID-19 patients in their 50s with pre-existing conditions will be required to stay at home and treat themselves starting Wednesday. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency announced that patients in their 50s having pre-existing disease will be excluded from the remote monitoring program and transitioned to general monitoring program. So far, these patients have been monitored by the remote healthcare system twice a day, along with people aged older than 60. However, from now on, they will have to personally request hospital treatment in the event their symptom gets worse.

The state agency said that the remote monitoring program for patients aged over 50 will be suspended as the case fatality rate for people aged below 50 is hovering close to zero percent. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the cumulative mortality rate for people in their 50s was totaled at 0.06 percent. Yet 100 out of 1,196 (8.4 percent) severely ill COVID-19 patients were in their 50s. It appears to be the fact that the health authority’s monitoring system has been overloaded, leaving no choice but to reduce the number of people required to be monitored. Under the current system, some 280,000 people are able to be monitored, but 246,000 people are already under the remote monitoring program.

In the meantime, the KDCPA also announced that COVID-19 patients with mild respiratory symptoms and are currently hospitalized for treatment of other diseases will be treated at general wards instead of negative pressure isolation rooms. Starting March 21, fully vaccinated people from overseas will be exempted from the self-isolation requirement, and those who have entered Korea during the period from March 15 to 20 and are currently self-isolated will be freed from self-isolation on March 21. People who are “fully vaccinated” refer to those who have received a booster dose or those who have completed the primary vaccination regimen and at least 14 days have passed since the administration of the second dose.


Gun-Hee Cho becom@donga.com