GOVT’S MEASURES AGAINST RESURGENCE

[Anchor Lead]

New daily COVID-19 cases have been above 70,000 for three consecutive days. With cases surging faster than expected, the government has decided to secure more hospital beds and issue administrative orders to prepare for as many as 300,000 cases. Health workers say the situation is alarming.

[Pkg]

Seven COVID-19 patients are receiving treatment at this university hospital. They are staying in negative pressure rooms. Under the government's administrative order, the hospital will secure six more beds for coronavirus patients. 13 in total will be operated.

[Soundbite] Kim Jin-sook(Hallym Univ. Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital) : "This is a four-person ward. We're preparing negative pressure and an anteroom."

The occupancy rate of COVID-19 beds stands at just 17.4 percent. But it's rising quickly. The government raised its forecast of daily tally from 200,000 to 280,000. It's now preparing for as many as 300,000 cases a day.

[Soundbite] Lee Ki-il(Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures HQs) : "We will secure some 4,000 more beds to prepare for 300,000 daily cases. We have already issued an executive order for 1,435 beds."

It takes at least 2-3 weeks to prepare beds for COVID-19 patients. Hospitals need to install negative pressure equipment and allocate staff. Finding health workers has become difficult as the pandemic drags on. Exhausted nurses are quitting their jobs. Rookie nurses with insufficient training also leave their workplaces soon because they fail to adapt.

[Soundbite] Cho Moon-sook(Hospital Nurses Association) : "Many nurses are quitting because they are under-trained and are dispatched temporarily to meet the required number."

Failure to predict the scope of an outbreak accurately always causes confusion.

[Soundbite] Prof. Kim Woo-joo(Korea Univ.) : "The bed occupancy rate at university hospitals and large medical centers is over 95 percent. If they are required to provide beds for critically ill patients, the already postponed surgeries will be canceled again and there will be more confusion."

The new restrictions ban in-person visitations at nursing homes, which had been temporarily lifted earlier.