LOOPHOLES DURING PATIENT REGISTRATION

[Anchor Lead]

As hundreds of thousands of people are testing positive for COVID-19, mistakes are being made during the registration of COVID-19 patients. A person not even tested for the virus gets registered as a confirmed case and an uninfected person gets notified as infected. Such errors are more prevalent among people with same names.

[Pkg]

A woman surnamed Jo living in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi-do Province visited a hospital recently for a rapid antigen test. But the hospital refused to test her, saying that she is already a confirmed case. The regional clinic had mistakenly entered her resident registration number for someone else, a Covid-19 patient who shares the same name.

[Soundbite] Ms. Jo(Pyeongtaek Resident) : "It would have been upsetting if I had to go to an emergency room because I was pregnant or very sick."

A Mr. Lim who runs a business in Jejudo island had to self-isolate and close down his shop for five days because of an erroneous COVID-19 notification. He didn’t have the virus but the local clinic sent him the notice that should have been sent to someone else with the same name.

[Soundbite] Mr. Lim(Jeju Resident) : "How can they send the wrong resident number? Even people with the same names have different registration numbers. My livelihood depended on it."

As the number of cases soar, administrative mistakes are more commonly found where people not infected are being registered as COVID-19 cases and vice versa. Authorities claim that when a local clinic reports cases to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, they screen out double entries or people with same names, but mistakes do occur sometimes.

[Soundbite] Lee Sang-won(Central Disease Control HQs) : "Corrections are made when there are entry errors or insufficient information. The KDCA corrects the data every day by checking with the local clinics."

Authorities have adopted a double verification system to reduce errors, but the confusion is likely to continue as cases keep mounting.