I read a Korea Times article that got me thinking. COVID-19 cases look to be on the rise again rightwhen the government has started to loosen up (we don’t have to wear masks outdoors anymore in most cases). Of course in this case, one doesn’t follow the other – the outdoor mask mandate has been gone for all of one day. But the numbers have got me thinking.
Sure, over 50,000 cases were reported yesterday. Not a big deal anymore. They were up near half-a-million a while back. A mere 10 percent of that seems paltry these days.
But here are the numbers that have me scratching my head. First off, Korea’s population (not noted in the article) is just shy of 52 million. So the 17-plus million total cases make up almost exactly a third of that (although some of those cases aren’t Korean). Then we have the people who have received two shots – 44.55 million people (33.14 million of which have received at least one booster). Now, a good chunk of those 17 million who have actually gotten COVID (probably quite a bit more, but some people were either asymptomatic or had such mild symptoms that they thought very little of them) were also vaccinated. But looking at the death rates, about 82 percent of the nation’s total deaths were of people 70 years or older. Get down under 50 and deaths are virtually non-existent (only 472 out of over 12 million confirmed cases). Finally (if I’m reading the data correctly) there are 400-some new hospitalizations daily, but (and because new hospitalization numbers were much higher a couple of weeks ago), more people are being discharged than taken in (and so there were 417 total hospitalizations yesterday even though there were 432 new hospitalizations).
I’m not necessarily scratching my head out of frustration of consternation. It’s more along the lines of, “when is this going to end?” Honestly. The numbers are telling me that, at the bare minimum, over 95 percent of the Korean population has to be solidly “safe” from the virus. I’m not saying immune, but I’m saying that getting COVID should be no worse than getting any one of a number of ailments. Vaccines have proven to be incredibly effective in mitigating the effects of the disease, and then there are the unvaccinated who have actually gotten it and survived. Throw in there the incredibly low death rates (even among those 80 and older who have caught the disease, the fatality rate is only 2.69 percent), and I’m left wondering, “What are we waiting for?” Why is COVID even a thing anymore?
I get it. Any COVID death is tragic. Most deaths of any kind are. And, like with most other diseases, we must be mindful of the immunocompromised, those with pre-existing conditions, and the elderly. But isn’t it about time that COVID stop hogging all of the attention and just get in line with the rest of the things that can kill us? Isn’t it time for all of the major networks in Korea to stop keeping the running tally of cases in the corner of our TV screens? Of course we should be careful. Especially with a neighbor and major world player who still hasn’t faced the reality that you can never really eradicate the virus (if they keep trying at this pace, there’ll be major disruptions in Chinese life from which they may not recover for years to come). It’s time to call it here, and in a lot of other places too. It’s time to get on with our lives.