시사&소설

 Jeju Special Self-governing Province on Sunday announced that its 8th coronavirus patient(a teen female) was discharged from hospital in the afternoon, April 12th.

 She got tested positive at about 10:20 pm on March 27th. She returned to Jeju from Los Angeles where she was studying. She was driven to home by her mother as soon as she exited Jeju airport, and also to a public health center.

 Jeju will actively monitor her for more than a week, it added.

 Besides this, the 5 family members of the 9th patient(F, 20s) will be freed from self-quarantine as of the midnight of the 12th. The 9th got a positive result on March 29th, so they were advised to stay at home. They have developed no symptom so far, Jeju explained.

 However, the 11th patient(M/30s) who is one of the family was transferred to Jeju University Hospital for treatments as he tested positive on April 3rd.

 제주특별자치도는 도내 8번 확진자 A양(10대 여성)가 4월 12일 오후 퇴원함에 따라 후속조치를 마련한다고 밝혔다.

❍ A씨는 미국 로스엔젤레스에서 유학 중 소재 고교 유학생으로, 3월 27일 오전 4시 경 인천국제공항으로 입국해 같은 날 오전 9시 경 제주로 입도했다.

❍ A씨는 이날 오후 1시 경 어머니의 차로 도내 보건소에서 검사를 받았으며 같은 날 저녁 10시 20분경 확진판정을 받았다.

❍ A씨는 입도과정에서 마스크를 착용했다고 구술했으며, 증상이 없었음에도 입도 당일 코로나19 검체 검사를 받아 동선을 최소화 했다.

❍ 또 A씨는 보건소 방문 과정에서도 어머니의 차를 이용하고, 검사 결과 대기시간 동안 자택에서 머무르는 등 격리 수칙을 충실히 수행한 사례로 알려졌다.

 제주도에 따르면, 제주대학교병원에서 격리치료를 받아온 A씨는 코로나19 검사결과 2회 연속 음성이 나타나면서 무증상 확진환자 격리해제 기준을 충족했다고 밝혔다.

❍ 제주도는 A씨가 퇴원한 후에도 1주일 이상 능동감시를 진행할 예정이며, 이상 증상 발생 시 관할 보건소에서 즉시 조치할 수 있도록 관리할 계획이다.

❍ 이번 8번 확진자 퇴원으로 4월 12일 현재 격리치료 중인 도내 확진환자는 7명이다.

 한편, 제주도에 따르면, 9번(남미 방문, 20대 여성)의 접촉자인 가족 5명은 12일 오후 코로나19 검사에서 모두 음성판정을 받아 13일 0시부로 자가격리가 해제될 예정이다.

❍ 이들 5명은 지난 3월 29일 확진 판정을 받은 9번 확진자의 접촉자로서 자가격리 되었으며, 12일 현재까지 특별한 증상이 없는 것으로 알려졌다.

❍ 이들과 함께 자가격리 중이었던 도내 11번 확진자 B씨(30대 남성)는 4월 3일 확진판정을 받아 현재 제주대학교 병원음압병상에서 치료 중이다.

❍ 이번 진단검사는 최종 접촉일로부터 13일째 날에 검사를 받아 음성임을 확인하고 다음날 격리 해제토록 하는 ‘코로나19 대응지침’에 따라 진행됐다.

 As of April 12th, Jeju has held a good control on COVID-19, novel coronavirus considering it has no new confirmed case since April 3rd(cf. the table below). And all the cases are related with outsiders rather than Jeju residents. This is unique as no community infection has occured. Is the clean environment of Jeju the main reason of it?

 Anway, the whole country has shown a great improvement of containing the crisis, people are beginning to go back to the normal life, if not the fullest, which can lead to a slow recovery of the economic activities. The Gov. Won Hee-ryong told reporters on Friday that Jeju will prepare to welcome domestic travellers expecting them to visit Jeju when they can not go aborad after the coronavirus is over. It seems that some already started to make reservations for rent-a-cars, hotels, etc. Plus, President Moon also said on his social media Friday that we can expect to get out of 'social distancing' into 'normal life + quarantine' if we spend safe Easter and election.

 Won said "It is highly possible that Jeju can be in a new danger unless we set the stronger quarantine system than at Incheon airport. … There, we will get details of border-level of disinfection procedures and higher steps ready."

Details of Confirmed Cases

The 5th, 6th, and 8th coronavirus patients will stay one week longer than expected.

According to Jeju Economy, one of the confirmed tested postive from the second check again after getting negative from the first one. Dr. Bae Jong-myon, director of the Jeju Center for Infection Diseases and Prevention(JeCI), on Tuesday at the joint briefing, told this to reporters. He said "Jeju cases are not serious ones, but minor or without symptoms. … One resulted in positive at the second test, while had negative at the first. This makes it hard to have them released from hospital."

This is not first-ever. The frist patient, who is a naval soldier, tested postive again on March 30th during the regular monitoring after he was discharged from hospital on March 23rd. His case was said to be the most unique as he had to stay in bed for over a month because his test results varied much.

 Jeju has been in a good control over the novel coronavirus outbreak as it has only 12 confirmed positive cases while 4 of them discharged from the hospital.

 Out of the 12 confirmed cases, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 7th are fully recovered and released from in-bed care by the authority.

 The most unique patient is the No. 1, a naval soldier in his 20s, as he spent about a month getting over the virus, and tested postive again while being closely monitored after discharged from the hospital. The second confirmation was not as vivid as the first, but the local governmnet is keeping an eye on his condition.

 The one point to be noticed is that Jeju has more confirmed patients who returned to Jeju from studying abroad like the other citied in Korea. No. 7 to 12 are the cases except for No. 11, who is a family to No. 9. Considering No. 5 & 6 tested positive after coming back from taking a language course in Spain, all the infections in Jeju seem to have foreign origins.

 This makes me wonder what keep Jeju from getting community-acquired infection. Is it the government control, the cooperation of local people, or the clean and comparatively wet environment of Jeju?

 Jeju was hit by new cases of coronavirus positive on Wedensday the 25th.

 Jeju Special Self-governing Provincial Office announced yesterday 2 cases were verified after another 2 on Tuesday.

 One case is from Seoul. The subject is a 19-year-old girl who came back to Korea on March 15th from the US where she was studying. She visited Jeju on March 20th with mom and 2 more people. Her itinerary is like the above.

 The problem is that she ignored the advice from the authority to stay home for at least 14 days, and she already had minor symptoms like sore muscles and throat on the 1st day. But, she kept her schedule to drive around half the island. People got furious about the fact, and began a campaing with a slogan 'Jeju is not a haven from coronavirus!'

 Governor Won Hee-ryong himself on Thursday put an emphasis on this and made a strong point that anyone will be serioulsy put upon consequences if they lie about travel history to foreign countries and self-quarantine.

 The other case is from Jeju. The confirmed is a female student(26) who studied in the Europe. She came back to Jeju on March 23rd via Dubai to Incheon. She took the Asiana OZ8997 at 8:50 pm at Gimpo on the same day. She took a taxi from Jeju International Airport.

 She had no fever while entering to Jeju. However, she stayed at home as she was informed to be on active watch lists. Then, she went to Jeju Healthcare Center on Wednesday morning, had test, and confirmed positive that night.

 Even with the result, she still shows no symptom at all to this moment.

 So, currently, Jeju has 3 patients being treated. The other 2 are couples who came back from Spain on March 18h and to Jeju on March 19th, and got confirmed on 24th.

 As Korea has now more cases from people who visited foreign countries, Jeju seems to go through the same experience.

The last novel coronavirus patient in Jeju is discharged from hosptal in Monday afternoon, the 23rd.

 According to Jeu Special Self-Governing Province, the patient, or No. 1 case confirmed positive for the novel coronavirus last month, was declared free from symptoms after two tests ended in negative. The medical team in charge of him concluded, therefore, he can leave the bed.

 But, he will be on further watch as he showed changing results between postive and negative before. Dr. Song Byunghul, director of Jeju National University Hospital, said "We will have him visit hospital every 2 or 3 weeks for testing whether he has a symptom or not."

 He added that people should keep the protective procedures as Jeju became the only place with no more confirmed cases today.

 All international flights at Jeju international airport stop flying as of March 19th, Jeju MBC reported on March 19th.

 According to it, Spring Airlines of China announced that it has run a special line between Jeju and Shanghai for the convenience of illegal Chinese people who wanted to leave Jeju, but has no more plan.

 The regular international airlines has been shut down since the coronavirus outbreak. And commercial airline companies are known to keep business that way even after summer schedules begin on March 29th, it added.

 The 1st patient who was confirmed positive for the novel coronavirus is almost ready to leave hospital very soon, Dr. Bae Jong-myon, Director of the Jeju Center for Infection Diseases and Prevention(JeCI), disclosed on Thursady.

 He told reporters that the patient, who is a soldier, has shown improvement and he will be discharged sooner or later. But, the 4th has to wait till next week to make a final decision.

 The soldier was tested positive on February 20th after visiting Daegu, the epicenter of the mass infection in Korea. The 4th one was diagnosed of contamination on March 4th with the same reason.

 As of the midnight March 18th, Jeju has run 35 cases. 59 people have done self-isolation.

 Two cases of confirmed cononavirus patients may be a clue to evolving of the virus, an expert suggested.

 Dr. Bae Jong-myon, director of the Jeju Center for Infection Diseases and Prevention(JeCI), told reporters a hypothesis at the joint press conference of Jeju Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters held at the Jeju Special Self-governing Provincial Office on March 12th, according to Jeju Economy.

 This was given to a question that the 2 workers at the Guro Call Center were confrimed positive to tests but, still, showed no symptoms. Even the family of the 2nd woker's got tested negative.

 Dr. Bae explains "It seems that mutated viruses are spreading among people, that don't infect others but, instead, develop no symptoms.". He added "The viral detection with no symptoms may suggest that coronavirus is evolving to adapt to human body."

◆ The Coronavirus Seems Adapting to Human While Mutating

 This means that the 2 patients may have no infection on Jeju Island, according to him. "We need more tests to prove it, but family members who are in close contacts with the 2nd infected worker were tested negative, and she got positive on March 10th after having negative on March 9th. This may lead to a conclusion that it is highly improbable that she spreaded the virus while in Jeju." the director added. It is because she was possibly negative to the virus while she was traveling in Jeju, considering she got tested postive only after the 10th.

 He gave the cause of the result to the viral mutation. He said, "We are having more contamination with little visual symptoms. And, Wuhan(the epicenter in China) had many cases with the severe fever and coughing in the beginning, but very fewer cases with coughing now.". From this, he concluded "The (corona) virus came to Korea via lots of people, thus, it adaps to men. Like this, it has changed to see its genetic mutation."

 However, no symptom doesn't necessarily assure that you can be healed from the disease, he pointed out. Plus, it takes at least 2 days to have symptoms after the incubation period. So, there can be many interpretations about the possibility of infection.

 The director put an emphasis, as well, that it is time to change the quarantine strategies as 'no symptom' or 'little symptom' isn't a proof of the end of the coronavirus. It rather means that it is highly possible to get more contagious because it is hardly seen. He opined here "We should test every one from a city with mass infection, e.g. Daegu, within 14 days even when there is no symptom."

 This means that "We must ditch 'Get test when you have symptoms.', and introduce 'Go to a triage room if you are coming from a mass-infected city.'"