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| Quarantine officials disinfect roads in Daegu, using a military vehicle, Thursday. The city has more than 1,000 coronavirus patients. / Yonhap |
By Kim Se-jeong
The coronavirus outbreak appears to be spiraling out of control here after 505 new cases were reported Thursday, with most being members of the Shincheonji Church in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
The nationwide total for COVID-19 infections has now reached 1,766 as of 10:00 p.m. with 13 deaths ― the latest being a 73-year-old man from Daegu with an existing kidney problem. He was a member of the controversial Christian sect and was confirmed infected Tuesday, but had to wait at home to be hospitalized due to a shortage of hospital beds.
The number of confirmed cases in Daegu alone stands at 1,132, almost two thirds of the total.
Mayor Kwon Young-jin said the biggest challenge for Daegu was shortage of patient beds. The city only has 54 negative pressure rooms for patients in a serious condition. Those with minor symptoms stay in ordinary wards, but there is now an acute shortage of beds, forcing many to stay home until one becomes available. Local news outlets reported some hospitals have discharged non-coronavirus patients to free up beds.
Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, South Gyeongsang Governor Kim Kyung-soo and Gyeonggi Governor Lee Jae-myeong have offered to receive coronavirus patients from Daegu as medical facilities in their respective regions still have negative pressure rooms available.
The city is also short on doctors, nurses and medical equipment such as thermometers. Kwon said almost 200 licensed doctors had volunteered to help and arrived in the city, but more were needed.
Meanwhile, the central government continued to focus quarantine efforts on members of the Shincheonji Church.
It is trying to locate them for testing after receiving a full list of members from the church, Tuesday, and sharing it with local authorities Wednesday.
On Thursday, the government also requested the church to hand over a list of an additional 70,000 "candidate members" along with their contact information. Shincheonji only "gives" membership to people who complete a seven-month-long training period.
However, the church refused saying it was difficult to share the contact information of non-members.
Gyeonggi Governor Lee complained that the list obtained by the central government was incomplete, saying the number was far fewer than the one he obtained earlier, after officials entered a church facility without its consent to get a full list of members.
Meanwhile people in rural areas seeking to buy protective masks from Post offices and Nonghyup Bank branches, which had been advertised as stocking them, were turned away as they hadn't received any supplies. In a press briefing, Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki said it would take another day or two to supply enough masks to them, adding that 1.2 million would also be made available at 24,000 pharmacies for city residents to buy.
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