How South Korea's early COVID-19 success remaining it scrambling to include a new wave

On the fourth floor of the Incheon city hall, South Korean epidemiological investigator Jang Hanaram's office is filled with six desks, two folding cots, and a table strewn with instant noodles, energy beverages and digestive aids.

Jang is one of six staffers who do the job 24-hour shifts in the cramped space, frantically tracing and contacting potential COVID-19 cases in South Korea's third-largest city due to the united states battles its most significant wave of infections yet.

Jang said he knew this wave was first different found in early December when the scarlet messages that record confirmed cases commenced to multiply in the chatroom on his screen.

"I thought, 'Wow, this is actually getting away from control,'" he told Reuters.

South Korea won international plaudits earlier this season when it quickly tamped straight down outbreaks by fielding a great aggressive, high-tech contact tracing system that mined cellphone site data, credit card information, CCTV footage, and other information to track down and isolate probable patients.

But after a summer of touting South Korea's approach as a good style for the world, officials acknowledge the success of those earlier attempts helped fuel over-confidence that left them straining to contain a third wave and scrambling to defend a cautious vaccine timeline.

In eight interviews with Reuters, frontline fighters in South Korea's war against the virus outlined what they state were vital mistakes by the federal government. 

Failings included not buying enough manpower and training for the tracing program, not mobilising hostipal wards fast enough to free up more beds, indecisive public distancing plans, and adopting a slow approach to securing and rolling out vaccines.

To wield its digital tools, South Korea relies on an army of public health workers and conscript doctors like Jang, a recently available medical school graduate who is working as a contact tracer in place of his mandatory military provider.

Jang says the overworked and underpaid conscripts or other public wellbeing doctors rotate too quickly in and out of their positions, while many of the new recruits have little to no training.

"The sense of fatigue is quite high right now," he said.

When compared to disasters unfolding in the usa, Europe and different virus hot spots, South Korea's 52,550 total cases and daily most of 1,097 remain low.

But this new wave is more persistent and widespread than any of the past surges, and has resulted in an unprecedented spike in deaths, with some patients dying before hospital beds become available. The quantity of active cases is now more than dual that of the previous high in March.

"Regardless of the warnings, over-confidence and excessive optimism had blossomed in lots of people’s minds," said Lee Jae-myung, governor of Gyeonggi Province, the most populous area found in the country.

When asked whether the government have been overconfident, Yoon Tae-ho, director-general for public wellbeing policy, acknowledged there have been most areas where authorities should have responded quicker, including mobilising various medical assets.

"We extremely regret that we have fallen behind a bit where we have to be one step prior to the virus," he explained at a briefing on Tuesday. Even now, he said authorities were working to fix any challenges and were self-confident the country could "deal with this third wave if the government, medical clubs and people unite."

TRACING SYSTEM STRAINED

Unlike previous waves of infections, that have been focused mainly on individual events or organisations such as for example churches or nightclubs, the existing surge of cases has been driven by small clusters at sites like eating places and offices, which are harder to trace. 

And nearly a third of recent cases result from entirely unknown origins.

Because the pandemic began, South Korea has a lot more than doubled the number of investigators, from around 130 to 305, based on the Korea Disease Control and Avoidance Agency.

To supplement their ranks further, the government has recently mobilised participants of the military and law enforcement, but it will take period to train more long-term, experienced personnel, Yoon said.

Lim Seung-kwan, chief of Gyeonggi Province’s COVID-19 emergency response activity force, said it's time to consider dropping mass tracing towards more targeted epidemiological surveys that seek out to better understand specific habits of the virus' spread while freeing up trained medical employees to supply patient care.

"It might be better to redeploy those that were tasked with assessment and tracing," he explained.

Because of the workload, Jang said they have begun to cut back their tracing, for example no more recording movements where in fact the patient was just in an area for a few minutes while wearing a mask.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Gyeonggi governor Lee, a member of President Moon Jae-in's ruling Democratic Get together, agrees the country can no longer count on tracing each case, and has needed extra flexible measures, such as for example mass testing of particular areas and using less accurate but faster antigen testing kits for pre-screening.

The over-confidence drove an incremental method of social distancing measures, Lee added, arguing more drastic but temporary measures would have resulted in less fatigue among the public.

South Korea hasn't imposed complete lockdowns, and due to recently as November was first offering vouchers to inspire domestic travelling and tourism. The prime minister has stated imposing the highest degree of social distancing will be a last holiday resort as a result of the economic damage.

Frustrated by what they see because the national government prioritising the economy above stopping infections, Lee and the leaders of Seoul and Incheon places this week imposed rigid gathering limits for the Holiday and New Season holidays.

Ma Sang-hyuk, vice president of the Korean Vaccine Society, told Reuters the good sense of complacency shaped the country's vaccine policy as well, with the federal government seeing low daily cases through the summer as evidence they didn't need to hurry.

"The federal government overlooked the pandemic as the daily cases commenced to stabilize and thought they could ride it away without the vaccine," he said.

Stung simply by criticism his government's intend to begin providing vaccines in February or perhaps March - a few months after some other countries - was too calm, Moon upon Tuesday promised a consumer vaccination programme would "not begin too later" and his business office emphasized the united states would eventually get enough doses to covers more than 85 % of the population.

Lim said the government must have prepared for worst circumstance scenarios but failed to scale up attempts it had manufactured in earlier waves, such as quickly securing a sufficient amount of beds in hostipal wards.

"We came to think that everything was going to be Alright if we wear masks good and adhere to what we'd been doing," he stated. "But that belief placed authorities back from seeking at why they were slow to do something, and whether there have been lessons to learn, from both successes and failures."