Author: GIKorea

U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris visited Incheon International Airport on Wednesday to see how fever checks on U.S.-bound passengers are going, a day after South Korea’s government took over the anti-coronavirus screening mission from airlines.

Harris visited a boarding gate in the Second Terminal of the airport, west of Seoul, and observed officials taking the temperatures of passengers of an Atlanta-bound Korean Air plane and received a briefing about the screening process.

“Terrific visit to Incheon Airport to see 1st-hand ROKG measures to combat COVID-19 & mgmt of travelers to USA. Impressed w/ROK’s robust & comprehensive response efforts to limit the virus’ spread. Thanks to all for the hard work,” he wrote in his Twitter account afterwards. 

On Tuesday, the government said it will take over the anti-coronavirus screening mission from airlines and conduct health examinations on passengers boarding flights to the U.S. from the Incheon airport and Gimhae International Airport in the southeastern city of Busan.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Who knows what is true in this report, but I think everyone finds it hard to believe that North Korea has no coronavirus cases:

Hundreds of North Korean soldiers have reportedly died from the coronavirus — and thousands of others are being quarantined.

But the secretive nation’s leaders are sticking to the official narrative that the global epidemic has not reached them.

According to Daily NK, a South Korean news organization, the COVID-19 virus killed 180 North Korean soldiers in January and February and has sent another 3,700 into quarantine. And according to South Korea’s government-backed Yonhap News Agency, almost 10,000 people have been quarantined over coronavirus fears, but nearly 4,000 have been released since they didn’t present symptoms.

But the North Korean government line hasn’t changed. The cloistered nation has remained stubbornly resistant to providing transparent information about the reported outbreak in the country.

Business Insider

You can read more at the link.

South Korea has had far more coronavirus infections than Japan and here is how one professor writing in the Korea Times explains it:

It’s been over two months since the outbreak of the Coronavirus, or COVID-19. As of March 9th, Japan has 1,198 confirmed patients (705 of which are aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship) with 14 deaths, while South Korea has 7,313 patients with 50 deaths. 

Why is there this huge difference in both patient numbers and deaths?  (….)

Largely missing from Japanese society are the incompetent hospitals, the gigantic protestant churches (280,000 followers), and the immense army bases (240,000 personnel) as super spreaders. Japanese hospitals do not have lenient visitation practices, making them free of mass infections. Given the small size in each church, no coronavirus outbreak has been reported among church goers. According to the Defense Department report of Feb. 25th, the military has also strictly cancelled all activities that involve inviting outsiders to maintain its full quarantine status.

Finally, the third difference is the large outbreak among women in their 20s in South Korea. This augurs the failure of South Korean society to fight mental depression among young women. The country has the world’s highest female suicide rate as of 2016 (14.1 suicides per 100,000 people). This is far higher than the third ranked Japan with 8 suicides per 100,000 people. Why so many women decide to take their own lives in South Korea is a complicated sociological issue. What is clear is that these women have no social support system other than the church.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but 63% of coronavirus patients in South Korea are women with many of them linked back to the Shincheonji church.

The call center cluster infection in Seoul has caused an increase in the rate of detected daily infections in South Korea:

 South Korea reported an uptick in new daily coronavirus cases Wednesday, reversing five straight days of fewer new cases, as the country grapples with clusters of infections in Seoul and neighboring areas.

The 242 new cases, which were detected Tuesday, brought the nation’s total number of infections to 7,755, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

Still, Tuesday’s additional cases were far below the daily increases of 500 or more last week but higher than the 131 new cases detected Monday. 

So far, 60 people, mostly elderly patients with underlying illnesses, have died in South Korea from the respiratory virus that emerged in China late last year, the KCDC said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on how the coronavirus spread has effected the ROK military:

One Air Force officer stationed in the southeastern city of Daegu tested positive for the new coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the military to 37 on Tuesday, the defense ministry said.

Of the total, 20 were in the Army, 13 in the Air Force, two in the Marine Corps and one each in the Navy and a unit under the direct control of the ministry, according to the defense ministry.

Thirty-two patients are active-duty service members and the remaining five are civilians working for the military, it added.

As a preventive step, around 2,560 service members are quarantined at their bases. Of them, around 280 have either shown symptoms or had direct contact with infected patients, while the remainder recently visited Daegu, North Gyeongsang Province or other virus-hit foreign nations, including China.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.