A potential silver lining with Omicron, COVID pandemic could extend to 2024, and 10yrs of Rocket Man
Coronavirus Special Edition
K-NEWS BITES
Mon 2021-12-20 (KST)
In today’s edition, we will forego the International Relations, Sci-Tech and Miscellaneous sections, to prioritize the high volume of Coronavirus-related news over the weekend. Think of this as a Coronavirus “special-edition.” (the Coronavirus section has also been pulled to the top to reflect this).
For residents in Korea - if you have a family member living under the same roof, who is not vaccinated, you may wish to refer to the “updated COVID restrictions clarification” at the bottom of this section.
Omicron, a pandemic silver lining? (6 min read)
“‘Variants are not all bad news… The virus’ instinct isn’t to kill, but to hang around us as long as it can. So if omicron is indeed less severe, and it goes on to overtake delta, then it may improve our odds against the pandemic. Then again, it’s too early to tell…’ Korea’s data is still scant, but none of the patients with confirmed or suspected omicron infection fell sick enough to be hospitalized, experiencing only minimal to mild symptoms to date…” Still the same rules are recommended, “... personal hygiene, crowd avoidance and mask-wearing… Even if [Omicron] may be less virulent in itself, if a large number of people become infected, then that would translate to a corresponding increase in hospitalizations and deaths.”
Pfizer says pandemic could extend to 2024 (2 min read)
Pfizer forecast Friday that the COVID-19 pandemic would not be over until 2024 and said a lower-dose version of its vaccine for 2- to 4-year-olds generated a weaker immune response than expected, potentially delaying full authorization. Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said in a presentation to investors that the company expects some regions to continue to see pandemic levels of COVID-19 cases over the next year or two. Other countries will transition to "endemic" with low, manageable caseloads during that same time period. By 2024, the disease should be endemic around the globe, the company projected… The drugmaker also has an experimental antiviral pill called Paxlovid which reduced hospitalizations and deaths in high-risk individuals by nearly 90 percent in a clinical trial.
South Korea to inject W4.3tr to support struggling small business owners (1 min read)
“South Korea will inject 4.3 trillion won ($3.6 billion) in subsidies to support owners of small businesses and self-employed people struggling from social distancing rules necessitated by the pandemic… The support measures come a day after the government decided to reimpose restrictions due to a surge in infections. Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said at a joint government briefing on the day, ‘If a sales decline is confirmed, the government will pay 1 million won in cash regardless of the size of sales or the level of quarantine measures.’”
South Korea’s restaurants despair amid ‘living with COVID’ U-turn (4 min read)
“Although South Korea’s economy has weathered the pandemic better than many of its peers – growing an estimated 4 percent in 2021 on the back of strong exports and rebound of the global economy – mom-and-pop businesses have been hit with repeated rounds of restrictions on their business hours. In September, business owners took to the streets to protest the curfews and restrictions, which organisers said had resulted in the permanent closure of 453,000 businesses… Nine-ninety percent of enterprises in Korea are considered small and medium businesses, employing 83 percent of the workforce…”
Prime Minister Apologizes to Small Biz Owners for Forcing Them to Face Hardship (1 min read)
“Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Friday that the government is deeply sorry for once again forcing small business owners to endure financial woes caused by tighter social distancing. Kim made the remark during a joint government briefing on ways to help small business owners…”
Rules Being Revised to Allow Funerals for COVID-19 Victims before Cremation (1 min read)
“The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA) said in a media briefing on Friday that guidelines are under revisions to guarantee the dignity of the deceased and the rights of their bereaved families to mourn their loss… Under current guidelines announced in February, people who died of the pandemic were cremated before their funeral to prevent the possible further spread of the virus via contact with the deceased’s body. However, there have been constant protests from bereaved families about the lack of time to properly mourn the death of their loved ones and to bid farewell to their remains.”
S. Korean drug firms rush to develop vaccines effective against omicron (2 min read)
“The country does not have a homegrown COVID-19 vaccine yet, but amid the fast spread of the omicron variant, more Korean drugmakers are ramping up efforts to develop COVID-19 vaccines… SK Bioscience earlier said it aims to produce an interim result of its final stage of the clinical trial in the first quarter of next year before seeking final approval. Commercialization is expected as early as in the first half of next year.”
Schools in capital area to resume remote learning over hike in coronavirus (1 min read)
“Under the latest [government] rules, schools in the capital area and overly crowded schools in other parts of the country will roll back fully in-person classes and reintroduce a mix of in-person and virtual classes starting Monday. Middle and high schools will be able to run at two-thirds capacity, while third- to sixth-grade elementary school classes will be able to run at 75 percent capacity. Only first- and second-grade elementary school classes will continue to be held fully in-person.” However, please check the specifics with your school, as they may have adopted tighter rules.
New COVID-19 cases below 7,000 for 1st time in five days, critical cases at fresh high (2 min read)
The country added 6,236 more COVID-19 cases… bringing the cumulative total to 565,098… The number of critically ill patients hit an all-time high of 1,025 on Sunday, after surpassing the grim milestone of 1,000 for the first time the previous day. The country added 78 more deaths from COVID-19, bringing the total to 4,722. The fatality rate stood at 0.84 percent. The public health agency reported 12 more omicron variant cases, putting the total at 178.
The bed occupancy rate in intensive care units for COVID-19 patients stood at 87.6 percent in Seoul as of 5 p.m. on Saturday, and the figure for the country as a whole came to 79.1 percent. The figure exceeds the 75 percent threshold, considered the saturation point. More than 31,000 COVID-19 patients are currently undergoing at-home treatment…. 81.9 percent [have] been fully vaccinated, while 22.5 percent had gotten booster shots, the KDCA said
Meanwhile, a pregnant woman living in Yangju, north of Seoul, who was receiving at-home treatment for COVID-19 gave birth inside an ambulance after being rejected by 16 hospitals due bed shortages.
General COVID Information for residents in Korea:
Ministry of Health and Welfare, South Korea
Coronavirus Statistics for South Korea
⚠️ Updated COVID Restrictions Clarification
For residents in Korea - if you have a family member, living under the same roof, who is not vaccinated, you may be interested in this:
We encountered a frustrating scenario on the weekend, which hasn’t been clearly articulated by recent government announcements, and there is also a lot of incorrect information online which doesn’t help! So we called the KDCA (Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency) hotline, through which we were able to get clarification, and thought it would be worth sharing:
The private gathering limit of up to 4 people, requires all of those 4 people to be vaccinated, even if all 4 people live together in the same household.
This sounds really straightforward, until you consider how things have worked to-date. Previously, if you could prove everyone in your group lived together under the same roof with a certified copy of your resident registration (주민등록표 - 등본) you were allowed to dine together, irrespective of the private gathering limit, and the vaccination status of each individual did not matter. But now the vaccination status does matter. So in a nutshell, if you’re not vaccinated, and you don’t have a certified exemption, you can’t eat out with others, even with the family members you live with.
Lee says son denies prostitution allegations (1 min read)
“Ruling Democratic Party (DP) presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung said Friday his elder son has denied allegations he visited a massage parlor for sex. The allegations were raised against Lee's 29-year-old son after he was found to have left a comment on an online poker forum that advised people against visiting a spa in Seongnam, south of Seoul, because it did not keep its massaging hours.‘I also checked, but he says there was no sex trafficking,’ Lee told reporters after a party meeting at the DP headquarters. ‘He swears it's not true, so as a parent, I have to trust him. Lee apologized for his son's gambling on Thursday.’”
[Newsmaker] Yoon apologizes over his spouse’s false career allegation (1 min read)
Kim Keon-hee, the spouse of presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol, “has been hit with allegations that she exaggerated her career history on resumes she sent to two local universities… to apply for teaching positions… The resume she sent to Suwon Women’s University in 2007 allegedly included false claims that she had served as a director for the Korea Association of Game Industry for three years starting in 2002, before it was officially established. On a resume sent to Anyang University in 2013, she allegedly lied that she had won the top prize in the animation category of the 2004 Korea Content Awards.”
Ten years of the Rocket Man: what's Kim Jong-un achieved (5 min read)
“He was, at the time, the youngest leader in the world at just 29 years of age, assuming command of a nuclear-armed nation in an unresolved state of war with its southern rival and the United States. Many predicted he was too immature and weak to endure. But in the decade that has passed, he has consolidated his power, eliminated rivals, and put his own spin on the leadership of the DPRK… Ultimately... the DPRK is an enigma to the world… few know how to approach it - hence why so many have got Kim and his country wrong in the past, and will continue to do so in the future.”
N. Korea urges 'absolute trust' in its leader, marking his father's death anniversary (2 min read)
“[Kim Jong-il] died on Dec. 17, 2011, after having ruled the reclusive regime since the death of his father and national founder, Kim Il-sung, in 1994. Kim Jong-un, the third son of the late leader, took over the helm of the North in another hereditary succession of power. In a front-page editorial, the North's main newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, [it] said… ‘All people and soldiers should have absolute trust in the general secretary, have their fate and future completely entrusted to him and guard his safety and authority…’”
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