The government on Monday instructed the 60 crematories nationwide to operate for longer hours to burn up to seven bodies from five, and the 1,136 funeral parlours capable of storing some 8,700 bodies to expand their facilities.
“We’ve discussed ways to reinforce the crematories to reduce public inconvenience,” health ministry official Son Young-rae said. “Crematories’ capacity is increasing … but there are still regional differences.”
Authorities have already boosted the combined daily cremation capacity from about 1,000 to 1,400 per day starting last week. But a large backlog of bodies and a long wait continued to be reported in the densely populated greater Seoul area, Son said.
Health ministry data showed that the 28 crematories in Seoul city were operating at 114.2 per cent capacity as of Monday, while the ratio stood at about 83 per cent in other regions such as Sejong and Jeju.
Crematories will be temporarily allowed to receive reservations from outside their regions, which is currently banned by some local governments, to ease the pileup, Son said.
The number of critically ill patients has been hovering above 1,000 over the past two weeks, but it could go up to 2,000 in early April, another health ministry official Park Hyang said.
Around 64.4 per cent of the intensive care unit beds are occupied as of Wednesday, compared with some 59 per cent two weeks earlier.
“The medical system is under substantial pressure, though it is still operated within a manageable range,” Park told a briefing on Wednesday.
“We would focus more on high risk groups going forward, and make constant checks to ensure that there is no blind spot.”
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