NEED FOR VENTILATION EQUIPMENT

[Anchor Lead]

Korea reported more than 128-thousand new COVID-19 cases as of midnight of Friday. The outbreak remains steady. Ever since taking office, the new administration has emphasized the importance of ventilation. It promised to devise new guidelines on ventilation and provide funding for ventilation equipment. But in reality few places are being ventilated properly. Here's why.

[Pkg]

A family reunion is held at this nursing home through a glass wall.

[Soundbite] "Did you have a good meal?"

In-person visitations are banned again after just two months because of a new wave of COVID-19. Despite efforts to keep COVID-19 at bay, 116 new outbreaks, or 2,400 cases, were confirmed at nursing homes lately. The cause: poor ventilation due to air conditioning. A nursing hospital where all of some 30 patients were infected with the virus back in April. It has no ventilation equipment in place, only about a dozen air purifiers for the entire three-story building.

[Soundbite] Lee Sung-eun(Director of nursing home) : "We don't have ventilators or air handlers. When someone gets infected, it spreads rapidly all over the place."

After the mass outbreak, the hospital wanted to install an air handling unit to improve air circulation indoors, but could not afford it.

[Soundbite] Lee Sung-eun(Director of nursing home) : "It costs around KRW 100 mn to install just one air handler. As a private facility, we cannot afford it."

A survey conducted by the KDCA shows only about half of the polled nursing homes and hospitals have air handlers or ventilators. The Yoon administration's transition committee promised new ventilation guidelines and funding.

[Soundbite] Ahn Cheol-soo(Then-head of presidential transition committee(Apr. 27)) : "Ventilation is essential. We will set ventilation guidelines and provide funding to those who need to install ventilators."

However, all the government has done so far is stressing the importance of opening windows to ventilate indoor spaces three times a day for ten minutes. No visible progress in terms of funding for ventilating equipment.

[Soundbite] Park Hyang(Central Disasters Management HQs(Aug. 3)) : "We need to analyze the criteria for ventilation equipment and discuss funding with relevant authorities based on the latest results."

The risk of infection surges by seven-fold when indoor spaces are not ventilated. Confined facilities accommodating people from high-risk groups are particularly prone to spread the virus.