Jung Jae-hun, a professor of preventive medicine at Gachon University, speaks during a special briefing session on COVID-19 organized by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency in Osong, North Chungcheong Province, Thursday. Yonhap

BA.5 wave slows slightly with 88,384 new infections

By Lee Hyo-jin

Korea may be able to avoid the worst-case scenario of reaching 300,000 daily COVID-19 infections during the peak of the current wave, according to some medical experts, who were cautiously optimistic about how the virus situation could develop in the coming weeks.

Driven by the highly contagious BA.5 Omicron subvariant, health authorities and experts had previously projected that the country would see up to 300,000 daily infections by mid-August.

"What experts forecast two to three weeks ago was a prediction that was close to the worst-case scenario, but now that more certain information is emerging, I think that there are a few reasons to believe that scale of the spread may decrease slightly from the forecast," Jung Jae-hun, a professor of preventive medicine at Gachon University, said during a special briefing session organized by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), Thursday.

Jung counted several positive factors, such as higher-than-expected vaccination rates for second boosters and the fact that the BA.2.75 subvariant, Centaurus, known to be more contagious than any of its predecessors, appears not to be showing its full force here, lowering the possibility that it might take over as the dominant strain.

"Nonetheless, infections are expected to rise significantly throughout the next couple of weeks, during which we will see the peak," he warned.

In response to rising public concerns over the latest wave of infections, the KDCA invited two medical experts ― Jung and Kim Nam-joong, head of the Korean Society of Infectious Diseases ― to answer questions from the public regarding the pandemic situation.

Some people asked the experts why the government has ruled out the reintroduction of social distancing measures despite the rapidly increasing number of infections. The KDCA is currently carrying out what it calls "autonomous distancing measures" which it says rely on the "participation and cooperation" of the public in taking antivirus precautions.

"The top priority of the current quarantine policies is to minimize the number of critically ill patients and deaths, most of which occur among the elderly population," said Kim.

"But restrictions on private gatherings and the operating hours of multiuse facilities have the most impacts on the daily lives of younger age groups, rather than the elderly," he said.

Jung also noted that although one-size-fits-all social distancing measures were proven to be effective during the early pandemic period when the country was fighting against the Delta variant, the measures are not considered a sustainable strategy long term.

"While one-size-fits-all social distancing is effective, how effective it is depends on the period, the variant, etc. From the time when the Omicron variant first appeared, the effectiveness of strong social distancing measures has been limited," he said. "Vaccines and therapeutics have succeeded substantially in reducing the percentage of serious cases, and other measures such as mandatory mask wearing and isolating infected people which have been maintained are helpful, even if without social distancing, in containing the spread."

When asked about how worried people should be about reinfection from BA.5 or BA.2.75 subvariants, Kim said, "Emerging variants may evade immunity created by vaccination or previous infections, but recent data show that reinfections may be less severe than primary infections."

According to KDCA data, so far, only about 86,000 people have been infected with the coronavirus at least twice, accounting for about 0.45 percent of the total caseload. Among them, 119 were found to have caught the virus three times.

Meanwhile, the country added 88,384 new infections for Wednesday, including 425 from overseas, bringing the aggregated total to 19,535,242.