Perhaps one of the most frequently posed questions since the pandemic’s onset is how the new virus may compare to seasonal influenza. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Oh Myoung-don, who leads the National Medical Center’s committee for clinical management of emerging infectious diseases, said during a press conference Tuesday that complications from “COVID-19 might not be more severe than the f...

A survey in August showed that people in Denmark were happier than people from any other advanced economy about their government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. They were more satisfied than South Koreans. Some 95 percent of Danes believed their government was doing a good job of handling the pandemic, while 86 percent of Koreans felt the same way about their government, according to a ...

South Korean researchers developed a machine learning model for predicting a COVID-19 mortality risk in patients at the point of care. The research team at the National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital said in Monday’s press release the model was able to estimate poor outcomes in patients with COVID-19 for over 90 percent of the cases. The model, as described in a study published last we...

South Korea on Thursday reported one confirmed case and two suspected cases of the Japanese encephalitis, all three of them in Gyeonggi Province. According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, a woman in her 60s was diagnosed with the mosquito-borne disease on Wednesday. The two suspected patients are a woman in her 70s and a man in his 50s. All three started exhibiting symptoms ...

Cancer has been the No. 1 cause of death in South Korea since 1983. The statistics agency said 574.8 deaths were reported per 100,000 people here last year. It also said 158.2 per 100,000 had died of cancer. Heart disease is the second-largest cause of death here, with 60.4 deaths per 100,000 people, followed by pneumonia with 45.1 deaths per 100,000 people. The leading causes of death inc...

COVID-19 brings greater access to alcohol with fewer constraints

Understanding transmission by asymptomatic patients has been cited as a key factor in controlling the spread of COVID-19 in communities. Korean public health authorities have repeatedly warned of the potential of asymptomatic patients to be behind a “silent spread” of the disease. “Epidemiological investigations reveal approximately 40 percent of all confirmed cases so far are asymptomatic,” sai...

COVID-19 spotlights health hazards of smoking

By Kim Arin ( arin@heraldcorp.com )

The novel coronavirus infection is relatively unnoticeable in children, leaving them less likely to get diagnosed. And despite their lack of distinct symptoms, children with COVID-19 can shed the virus for as long as over two weeks, a recent study found, highlighting their potential role in spreading the disease silently in the community. The study published Aug. 28 in the Journal of the America...

Most COVID-19 patients under 50 have recovered without oxygen therapy, according to a study conducted by the National Medical Center’s clinical committee for emerging infectious diseases, supporting findings of previous studies that showed age is associated with worse outcomes. The study, which assessed the clinical outcomes of 3,060 patients who received care at 55 hospitals during the first wa...

Doctors worry about people not going to hospitals over coronavirus fears

Last month, a South Korean COVID-19 survivor underwent a double-lung transplant that ended up saving her life -- a procedure that is the first of its kind in the country and only the ninth worldwide since the outbreak began. Behind her monthslong recovery and the eventual transplant are a squad of doctors and nurses who say coronavirus survival takes team effort. When the 50-year-old woman arriv...

Summer is in full swing amid an ever deepening pandemic. As the virus is new, figuring out how to navigate the season safely can be daunting. Health experts share their responses to some of the popular queries about the coronavirus in summertime. Will hot temperatures mitigate the spread? Contrary to earlier conjectures, warmer weather does not stop the coronavirus from spreading. Countries wit...

Korean health authorities said Wednesday that stocks of remdesivir, an experimental antiviral once seen as a potential Ebola therapy, will be supplied to local hospitals for treating COVID-19. In a press release, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the use of remdesivir will be limited to seriously ill patients in need of oxygen therapy. More specifically, patients with che...