69% S.Koreans say 'living with Covid-19' scheme raised health risks

Seoul, Dec 11 (IANS) Seven out of 10 South Koreans believe the government's "living with Covid-19" campaign has elevated the risk of virus transmission, according to a poll released on Saturday.

The survey, commissioned by a research team led by Prof. Yoo Myung-soon of Seoul National University's graduate school of public health, found that 69 per cent of respondents said they saw the public risk related to Covid-19 as having increased after implementation of the scheme aimed at returning to normal life while treating the virus as a seasonal disease, reports Yonhap News Agency.

It said 23.1 per cent assessed the risk level from the government measures as "normal", while 8 per cent said the risk level has not increased.

The alarming increase in recent cases and the emergence of the omicron variant in the country was not reflected in the survey conducted last month.

Almost half of respondents believed that the government has not prepared sufficient measures against an increase in transmission risks.

Of those, 58.1 per cent pointed to the lack of hospital beds and 29.8 per cent said medical workers to treat critical patients needed to be increased.