South Korea's vaunted medical testing system missed one

Posted on: April 23, 2020 at 23:28:56 CT

there. It's understandable, I suppose, but they ignored a couple of warnings signs:

"Patient 31 first checked into the Saeronan Chinese Medicine Hospital on Feb. 7, complaining of headaches after being involved in a car accident the day before. According to the hospital, the patient didn’t have any record of traveling overseas or have any known contact with a coronavirus patient. She also didn’t have any fever, cough or respiratory symptoms.

On the third day of being hospitalized, the patient developed a fever and received a flu test, which came back negative, according to the hospital.

The next day, she left the hospital for two hours to attend a morning service at the Shincheonji church in southern Daegu, according to Korea’s CDC. It is common in South Korea for hospital patients to come and go — even walking outside wearing hospital garb and wheeling intravenous drips alongside them.

The woman also had lunch with a friend at a hotel in eastern Daegu on Feb. 15 and attended another Shincheonji worship service on Feb. 16, the national health authorities said.

It wasn’t until Feb. 17, as her condition worsened and a scan showed signs of pneumonia, that doctors were prompted to test for the coronavirus. Ten days after she first set foot in a hospital, her infection was confirmed after a diagnosis at a public health clinic."


Edited by JeffB at 23:29:29 on 04/23/20