This photo, provided by the Armed Forces Medical Command, shows a hospital room for new coronavirus patients at the Armed Forces Capital Hospital in Seongnam, south of Seoul, which will begin receiving civilian virus patients on Sept. 9, 2020.
SEOUL, Jan. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — A recent survey showed that disasters like the paralysis of public healthcare and IT infrastructure are expected to have a higher risk in the post-coronavirus era.
The National Disaster Management Institute asked 100 disaster safety-related professionals to pick five disasters with a potential to be highly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic among 30 different types of disasters.
A total of 37 professionals participated in the survey.
The share of those who selected the paralysis of public healthcare infrastructure as the disaster that would have a greater risk due to the new coronavirus outbreak was the highest at 18.
They predicted that public healthcare infrastructure would be exposed to a greater risk of being paralyzed in the future due to the accumulation of fatigue of medical staff and a shortage of medical personnel resulting from the increase in the number of hospitalized patients with infectious diseases and the prolonged spread of such diseases.
In contrast, fine dust was singled out by 24 professionals as the disaster whose risk would be reduced in the future.
The slowdown in the operations of factories resulting from the pandemic would likely to contribute to reducing the amount of fine dust.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
