New Delhi (NVI): South Korea and Japan are deploying their militaries to assist healthcare workers in combatting COVID-19, with South Korean soldiers called in to expand coronavirus testing and tracing and Japanese military nurses tapped to fill a shortage of staff at hospitals in the hard-hit regions of Hokkaido and Osaka.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in today ordered the government to mobilise every available resource to track Covid-19 infections and to expand testing by deploying the military and more people from the public service as the country struggled to control its latest wave of infections.
The order came after Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 615 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, capping a month of triple-digit daily increases that have led to 8,311 confirmed patients in quarantine, the most ever.
Moon said testing sites should operate longer hours to allow people working to get tested at their convenience and more drive-through testing facilities should be set up.
The positive rate for the latest batch of tests was about 4.2 per cent, compared to the year’s average of 1.2 per cent, according to the KDCA.
Since the pandemic started, South Korea has reported a total of 38,161 cases, with 549 deaths.
Meanwhile, military moves were afoot in Japan as well, where Self-Defense Forces nurses were preparing to be deployed to Osaka and Hokkaido to help treat a surge in coronavirus infections as soon as the two prefecture governments request it.
In northern Hokkaido, there has been infection clusters at two hospitals in the city of Asahikawa, according to the NHK broadcaster. The Asahikawa Kosei Hospital has a total of 217 confirmed cases and the privately-run Yoshida Hospital has 184.
The latter sent a request to Hokkaido’s governor asking for military assistance, saying the city’s medical association is overburdened and there is no alternative, NHK reported.
Whereas in Osaka, where a local state of emergency has been declared over COVID-19, Governor Yoshimura Hirofumi asked the Defence Minister today to send military nurses to treat severely ill coronavirus patients at a newly established medical facility.
As of Saturday, Osaka had recorded more than 300 new coronavirus cases for five consecutive days, according to the data.
So fr, Japan has reported around 1,63,000 cases of the novel coronavirus and 2,300 deaths.
-CHK
