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| Merchants and residents wait in long lines for COVID-19 testing at Garak Market in Seoul's Songpa District, Monday, as the market has reported a high number of COVID-19 infections. Yonhap |
By Jun Ji-hye
Nine in 10 Korean people believe that ending the COVID-19 pandemic is impossible and that people will need to get further shots against the coronavirus every year as they already do to cope with seasonal flu, according to the latest survey released by the National Medical Center (NMC), Monday.
The public hospital said it had commissioned Gallup Korea to carry out the survey on 1,550 adults across the country. The survey was conducted from Aug. 18 to 23, and the respondents included 29 people who had been previously infected with the coronavirus and discharged from hospitals.
In the survey, 89.6 percent of respondents said they expect the COVID-19 threat will be endless, and vaccines will need to be administered to people annually. About 54 percent said vaccines would help people overcome COVID-19 to some extent.
Regarding ways of dealing with virus patients, 73.3 percent agreed with the need to adopt a home treatment system for patients with milder symptoms, and 62.6 percent said authorities should shift their focus to high-risk patients.
But less than half of the respondents ― 42.5 percent ― agreed with the need to ease the country's social distancing restrictions.
Among the respondents, 67.1 percent said they have experienced depression and anxiety due to the prolonged pandemic and continued social distancing restrictions.
Fifty-five percent cited fake news and disinformation about the pandemic as a reason for their anxiety, while 44.5 percent cited a decline in their income and 41.3 percent said social isolation.
With regard to government policies, 46 percent expressed complaints about the government's failure to secure sufficient vaccines on time, while 65.9 percent praised the country's medical responses to virus patients.
But only 58.6 percent of past COVID-19 patients said they had been treated well in hospitals.
When it comes to support measures, 94.4 percent of the respondents raised the need to reinforce medical personnel and resources at hospitals that have been at the frontline in the fight against the pandemic, while 86.1 percent said the government needs to find more realistic ways of compensating owners of small businesses, including restaurants and bars, for their economic losses caused by the continued social distancing regulations.
"Based on the results of the survey, the government should place the people and virus patients at the center of its strategies to coexist with the virus," said Jung Ki-hyun, who heads the public hospital.
The latest survey had a 95 percent confidence level with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percent.
