8 months after “the end of COVID-19”, another crisis… “Infectious disease epidemic” = South Korea

Mr. Seo, 33, a Korean office worker, recently held a team meeting while working from home, but he participated online. He and other colleagues came down with colds, and many people were working from home.
This is because the team's consensus is to reduce face-to-face meetings for a while and hold online meetings instead. Mr. Seo said, ``The cold has been going around lately, and I went to work, but it's highly contagious, so I didn't want to go to work.
There is an atmosphere that allows online meetings." Less than a year after the declaration that the COVID-19 virus was over in May of last year, it appears that non-face-to-face daily life is once again spreading. Recently influenza or new virus
Patients unanimously say that not only are respiratory diseases such as coronavirus being prevalent at the same time, but the severity of the symptoms is clearly different from before. This has led some companies, like Mr. Seo, to reduce face-to-face contact.
The government also allows telecommuting and online meetings. An increasing number of people are canceling face-to-face appointments after work and avoiding places where many people gather on weekends.
The reason why people are increasingly engaging in non-face-to-face activities in their daily lives is because the influenza pandemic shows no signs of slowing down this winter.
Influenza type A mainly circulates from November to February, and influenza B from February to April, but this winter is unusual in that these two types of influenza are prevalent evenly. this
In addition, diseases such as COVID-19 and mycoplasma pneumonia are rapidly spreading. In fact, the number of suspected influenza patients per 1,000 outpatients was 61.3 in the first week of December last year.
After that, the number decreased to 43.3 people and started a downward trend, but it increased to 51.9 people in the first week of this month. The Disease Control Agency's standard for issuing an influenza epidemic alert is 4.9 cases per 1,000 outpatients.
Therefore, it is currently a serious epidemic. Mr. Kang (32), an office worker, canceled all evening appointments he had scheduled. I visited the hospital two or three times a week because of a cold I had recently caught.
This is because there is a sense of anxiety that the infection may not heal and be passed on to other people. Kang said, ``In the second half of last year alone, I came down with a cold three or four times and went to the hospital, but the cold I caught this time was so strong that I couldn't pass it on to others.''
``I thought it was a nuisance,'' he said, ``For the time being, I plan to just go back and forth between work and home.'' Experts recommend basic preventive measures such as wearing masks and getting the flu vaccine.
I advise you that you must do so. Shim Kyung-won, professor of family medicine at Ideomok-dong Hospital, said, ``Recently, influenza A and B, the COVID-19 virus, mycoplasma, etc.
"We need to be careful because pneumonia and other diseases are spreading all at once," he said, adding, "We should take precautions, such as wearing masks and supplementing with vitamins and other supplements to keep our immune system from weakening."