S.Korea turns to self-treatment as COVID surges
South Korea said on Thursday (February 10) patients with mild coronavirus symptoms will have to treat themselves.
This new strategy aims to free up medical resources for more serious cases as the Omicron variant continues to spread.
The daily count of cases in the country has surged more than two-fold in less than a week.
Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency senior official Lim Sook Young:
"As Omicron has become the dominant variant and the number of confirmed cases has rapidly increased, proper protection for high-risk groups is the most important. Considering this, we are changing the overall virus prevention system."
South Korea has largely been a COVID-19 mitigation success story, thanks to aggressive testing and tracing, social distancing and mask wearing.
But the government this month started to shift its strategy towards self-monitoring, diagnosis and at-home treatment.
From Thursday (February 10), authorities will only provide care to COVID-19 patients aged 60 and older or with underlying conditions, while others monitor themselves and seek medical help from designated clinics if their conditions worsen.
Medical kits including an oxygen saturation measurement device, a thermometer and a fever remedy were previously available to all patients who treat themselves at home.
They will now be distributed only to priority groups.
Those with mild or no symptoms will now have to buy these things themselves.
In North Korea, the COVAX global COVID-19 vaccine-sharing has scaled back the number of doses allocated to the country, according to international aid organizations.
A UNICEF website dashboard shows the number of doses earmarked for North Korea now stands at 1.54 million, down from as many as 8.11 million last year.
The country has so far failed to arrange for any shipments.
It is not known to have imported any COVID-19 vaccines.
But media reports have suggested at least some key people, such as border control officials, may have been vaccinated.
