"4차유행 정점은 아직…신규 확진자 2천명 안팎까지 늘 듯
South Korea's fourth wave of infections are showing daily figures never seen before.
Despite this... many experts say that the situation will only get worse before it starts to get better.
This is due to a rise in cases of the more transmissible Delta variant and a slow vaccine rollout.
Our Kim Do-yeon spoke to a few experts.
Despite South Korea continuing to report its highest ever daily number of COVID-19 cases, experts say that the situation will get even worse before the spread slows down.
In fact, the numbers... many experts say... will reach around 2-thousand before it starts to get better.
While the capital region imposed level 4 of its social distancing measures starting Monday, the benefits will only begin to show later.
So, how did the nation get to this point?
Most experts turn to the Delta variant.
"Israel went past 700 daily cases. They were at five about a month ago, that's more than a hundred times more. For us, a week ago Alpha cases were more common than Delta, but now Delta is more widespread. When the Delta variant was spreading, our country laxed the distancing measures."
In addition, South Korea's inoculation drive is slower than some of the countries that are facing a rise in daily cases... such as Israel and the UK.
But, vaccinations are seen as key in overcoming this particular wave.
"We can't do social distancing forever. This is a temporary measure. The real solution is the vaccine."
In addition to bringing down the number of cases, vaccines will help against the severity of each case.
"The low rate of inoculations could be a problem especially because we could have more patients in critical condition."
Experts also added that there could be a balloon effect as the capital region went into the level four distancing measure... and while cases slow down in that area... other regions of the country could see a rise.
They added that if the virus isn't stopped fast enough, a serious rise in cases for the rest of the nation is just a matter of time.
Kim Do-yeon, Arirang News.
#COVID19 #infection #SouthKorea
2021-07-14, 19:00 (KST)
0 Comments