Number of Covid patients in South Korea expected to reach 350,000 next week

Seoul, Aug 19 : The number of Covid-19 patients is expected to reach 350,000 next week, matching a peak seen in last year's summer wave, a senior health ministry official said on Monday.

Hong Jung-ik, director-general in charge of infectious disease policy at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, told a radio interview that health authorities have no plan to raise an alert level for Covid while supplying enough treatments and testing kits, Yonhap news agency reported.

"Although the current number of patients is about half of what was reported in August last year, considering the summer season trends over the past two years, the weekly figure could reach 350,000 by the end of this month, similar to last year's peak," Hong said.

Health authorities have expected the current wave of Covid to peak later this month.

Hong said that the government has been distributing Covid treatments and noted that sufficient volume will be available at local pharmacies by the end of this month.

Last week, the presidential office said the country will supply treatments for 260,000 Covid patients.

Hong added that the government will supply more than 5 million testing kits by the end of this month.

On Sunday, the country’s disease control agency said the level of the Covid virus in wastewater has nearly doubled in just a week.

The Korea Wastewater Surveillance programme, run by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), said the average concentration of the virus at local sewage treatment plants reached 47,640 copies per millilitre during the second week of August, Yonhap reported.

It sharply rose from the 24,602 copies per millilitre recorded the previous week.

The data is based on the levels of the Covid virus in water treated by 84 wastewater plants across the country.