South Korean experts say the country’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic needs restructuring to address the unequal cost of social distancing.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare on Tuesday invited a panel of experts across various fields, ranging from public health to economics, to deliver their recommendations ahead of planned revisions to its social distancing guidelines.

Health policy and management professor Dr. Kim Yoon of Seoul National University said it was time Korea “pivots its response from just counting how many patients have been diagnosed each day.”

“The numbers can belie how well or badly a country might be doing. For instance, Korea posted a mortality rate higher than that of the US -- which reports about 50 times more daily cases than Korea does -- at over 2 percent in the past month,” he said.

On Bloomberg’s COVID Resilience Ranking updated Jan. 25, Korea fell by four spots to rank 12th out of 53 countries, which is lower than some countries that are counting far more cases, he pointed out. “In assessing COVID-19 response, we have to look at the situation from all angles beyond the case count -- such as how inoculations are playing out, and how the hospitals are faring.”

Kim argued that had the government had secured more beds ahead of the winter, the kind of scrambling witnessed between December and mid-January could have been avoided. “You can’t order hospitals to free up beds for COVID-19 patients on short notice just like that,” he said.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Choi Won-suk agreed that the government was managing its health care resources poorly, and as a result was turning a blind eye to health needs that are unrelated to COVID-19, but are just as, if not more, urgent.

“To turn 1 percent of the ICU beds into a COVID-19 ward, we have to empty about a quarter of all beds. And the kind of patients that are in the ICU can’t be relocated easily,” said Choi, who works at Korea University Medical Center in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province.

“At one point even patients who suffer cardiopulmonary arrest could not be moved to the ICU and were instead put on indefinite standby in the emergency room,” he said.

Public health policy professor Kwon Soon-man, also of Seoul National University, said shifting the responsibility to the public for not practicing social distancing as intensively was “not a desirable approach.”

“The government regularly announces how much public movements have increased based on smartphone GPS data analysis. The tone here is almost reproachful. But for some people, social distancing is a luxury,” he said. “We can’t blame them for not being able to stay home when we’re not doing anything to ensure they will not be losing pay while doing so.”

Small businesses are being wrecked as a result of social distancing policies, and not enough help is coming from the government, according to business administration professor Park Ju-young of Soongsil University.

“Korean businesses are overwhelmingly small businesses, and 84 percent of small-business owners say they have suffered financial losses as a consequence of social distancing, according to our data,” he said.

Park proposed socially distanced operations at food service businesses, which are among the most heavily affected, as opposed to early closures with no such limits: “Why not place barriers or put more space between tables and permit longer operation hours, instead of running crowded shifts for shorter hours?”

He said the universal stimulus packages now being floated in the parliament were a “bit off” and potentially counterproductive, “when clearly some are hit significantly harder than others.”

“The assistance to the small-business owners could include career change training and grants and other employment assistance programs so they have the means to get back on their feet,” he added.

Wrapping up, Kim of Seoul National University said: “I hope I’m wrong when I say this but we could face another resurgence, and another one after that, for the remainder of the year as COVID-19 persists. But social distancing, the way it’s being done so far, punishes people without due compensation. It’s not sustainable, and unfair.”

He went on, “Realistically, less than 1 percent of the population will be vaccinated before summer. There’s a chance the vaccines could also be incapacitated by the emerging variants. Social distancing will be inevitable for a very long time.

“People can make unredeemed sacrifices only for so long. It’s time to increase the government’s share of the burden.”

On Tuesday Korea’s tally of confirmed cases rose by 336 -- 295 locally transmitted and 41 imported from overseas -- to reach 78,844. Ten more deaths were announced, bringing the toll to 1,435.

By Kim Arin (arin@heraldcorp.com)