Gyeonggi Province to operate home care support consultation centers by city and county... outdoor activities permitted when necessary

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Park No-hun] In accordance with the reorganization of the home care system in response to Omicron, Gyeonggi Province is operating home care support consultation centers for the general management group that handle basic medical consultations and medication prescriptions.

Six hospitals operated by the Gyeonggi Provincial Medical Center began operations on the 8th, and the province plans to establish home care support consultation centers in all cities and counties by the 10th.

Ryu Young-chul, director of Gyeonggi Province's Health and Health Bureau, held a regular press conference on the 8th and explained the details of the Omicron response quarantine and home care reorganization implementation plan.

The province is reorganizing the home care monitoring system with a focus on intensively managed groups.

The intensively managed group will maintain twice-daily phone monitoring by medical institutions specializing in infectious disease care, such as dedicated COVID-19 treatment hospitals, as before.

Home care kits will be distributed only to confirmed cases in the intensively managed group, such as those aged 60 and above, to improve delivery efficiency.

The general management group will manage themselves, but when necessary, can receive non-face-to-face medical services and basic medical consultations and medication prescriptions at neighborhood clinics or home care support consultation centers.

Initially, six hospitals operated by the Gyeonggi Provincial Medical Center (Suwon, Uijeongbu, Paju, Icheon, Anseong, and Pocheon) began operating home care support consultation centers on the 8th, and the province plans to open home care support consultation centers in all cities and counties by the 10th in cooperation with home care medical institutions.

However, the province plans to prepare so that general administrative inquiries not related to medical consultations can be handled by each city and county's home care promotion task force.

Additionally, epidemiological investigations will adopt self-reported survey forms, and survey items will be simplified.

The self-quarantine app will be abolished, and the quarantine methods for confirmed cases and co-quarantined household members will be reorganized, with existing quarantine management personnel converted to quarantine and home care support personnel.

Guidance on quarantine for co-quarantined household members, which was previously handled by health centers, will now be conducted through confirmed cases, and quarantine release will be changed to automatic release after 7 days without separate notice.

On the condition of strict compliance with quarantine measures such as mask-wearing, co-quarantined members can engage in outdoor activities when absolutely necessary, such as receiving medication prescriptions and picking them up.

Meanwhile, as of 0 a.m. on the 8th, the death toll in Gyeonggi Province increased by 12 compared to 0 a.m. the previous day, reaching 2,207.

As of 0 a.m. on the 8th, the number of confirmed cases in Gyeonggi Province increased by 12,138 compared to the previous day, for a total of 328,822.

As of 8 p.m. on the 7th, the total number of secured beds at medical institutions in the province, combining general and severe patient beds, is 5,835.

Currently, 2,614 beds are in use, with a bed occupancy rate of 45 percent. As of 7 p.m. on the 7th, 1,197 patients are admitted to the total of 11 residential treatment centers operated by Gyeonggi Province.

As of 6 p.m. on the 7th, there are 99 home care medical institutions in the province, and 17 short-term outpatient clinics are operating. Currently, 45,975 patients are under treatment.

As of 0 a.m. on the 8th, among Gyeonggi Province residents, a total of 11,561,639 people have completed the basic COVID-19 vaccination series, which accounts for 85.8 percent of the Gyeonggi Province population. The number of additional vaccination recipients is 7,307,934, representing 54.2 percent of the Gyeonggi Province population.