Category: Korea-General Topics

What the Korea Centers for Disease Control is essentially saying is that the coronavirus detection kit was faulty and that is why it is showing reinfections:

Some coronavirus patients in Korea who tested positive for Covid-19 after recovery — sparking alarm about possible reinfections — probably did so because the country’s sensitive testing procedure detected “dead” virus fragments within their bodies.

A clinical committee for new infectious diseases within the state-backed National Medical Center said Wednesday in a press briefing that there was a low chance that those people were actually reinfected with Covid-19 and said the country’s RT-PCR testing method seemed to have confused a dead virus fragment with an active one.  

Fears of reinfection arose after the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported cases of recovered patients testing positive for Covid-19 again. By Monday, there were at least 277 people who fell into that category.   

You can read more at the link.

This is quite a tragedy that happened in Icheon:

Police on Thursday strived to identify some of the 38 construction workers killed in a warehouse fire in Icheon, south of Seoul, after wrapping up a search and rescue operation in one of the country’s deadliest blazes in years. 

The fire, which injured 10 others, two of them seriously, engulfed a four-story building under construction in Icheon, 50 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on Wednesday afternoon and was put out five hours later.

Yonhap

Here is what President Moon had to say:

President Moon Jae-in voiced regret that another massive fire had taken place despite government safety measures put in place following fatal fires in 2017 and 2018. A fire at a sports center in Jecheon killed 29 people and injured 40 others in December 2017, and another occurred in Miryang, killing 45 and injuring 147 only a month later in 2018. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I do find it interesting how moderate the media coverage of a major mass casualty death like this is getting.

This will be a big step reopen schools, not so much for the students who really aren’t effected by the coronavirus, but the teachers and family members they may spread the virus to:

The government appears to be in a dilemma over whether to resume normal classes at schools, according to education officials Tuesday, as the number of new coronavirus infections has been on a downward trend.

Officials want to open schools as quickly as possible and return teachers and students to classrooms. But at the same time, they are equally concerned that if they open the schools too soon, they could become a hotbed for the highly contagious virus as students come into contact with one another.

As the number of newly confirmed daily cases of COVID-19 has stayed around 15 or less for 10 consecutive days, many educators, teachers and students expect to see schools resuming normal classes. Schools have been closed since March 2, when the new school semester was originally scheduled to commence.

The Ministry of Education said Tuesday that it had held a videoconference with local education superintendents to come up with a detailed plan for any reopening. During the conference, Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae and the 17 regional superintendents discussed how to resume normal classes while preventing them from becoming hotbeds for the coronavirus. 

A decision is expected between May 3 and 5, after the government decides whether to further ease social distancing next week.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Hopefully firefighters are able to get this blaze under control before it becomes a major threat to property owners:

Firefighters on Saturday continued to battle a mountain fire in the southeastern city of Andong that broke out the previous day, as strong winds hampered their containment efforts.

The fire, which was first reported on Friday afternoon, has affected an estimated 100 hectares of mountain land, with no casualties reported yet. 

Authorities have ordered nearby residents to evacuate and restricted traffic around the city.

Minister of the Interior and Safety Chin Young ordered officials to use all available resources to contain the fire as soon as possible and minimize its impact.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Another sign of normalcy returning to South Korea:

CGV, South Korea’s largest multiplex chain, said Friday that it will reopen 36 theaters next week that have been shut down for about a month due to business disruptions stemming from the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“We will restart operations in a bid to overcome the crisis by revitalizing the virus-hit film industry and our neighborhood economy,” an official from the company said.

Theaters, including those in Myeongdong and Daehangno, central Seoul, will resume operations from Wednesday, she said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is interesting that the researchers declare their clinical study as inconclusive despite out of 205 test subjects exposed to the coronavirus not contracting it:

A clinical study on a preventive virus treatment using hydroxychloroquine, a controversial drug that has been touted as a possible cure for the novel coronavirus, was inconclusive, according to the Korean researchers.

Researchers from Samsung Medical Center in southern Seoul and Pusan National University Hospital in Busan completed post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) using hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) on 184 patients and 21 health care workers at a long-term care hospital in Busan, where they were exposed to the coronavirus after massive infections were reported there. 

Post-exposure prophylaxis refers to any preventive medical treatment started after exposure to a pathogen. HCQ is an anti-malaria drug that recently gained worldwide attention after U.S. President Donald Trump said it could be a cure for Covid-19, although medical experts are divided over the use of the drug, citing side effects.

According to the study, which was published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, Korean researchers conducted the treatment on people who were at risk of contracting Covid-19, although their baseline polymerase chain reaction tests for the novel coronavirus were negative.

Researchers gave the subjects a daily dose of 400 milligrams of HCQ until the completion of a 14-day quarantine period. During the trial, 32 people reported one or more symptoms, including diarrhea, skin rash and gastrointestinal problems, the study showed.

At the end of 14 days of quarantine, follow-up tests on the study participants were all negative, indicating that those who received the treatment did not develop Covid-19.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Here is another example of a healthcare official trying to cover for all possibilities which ends up getting everyone worked up about something that may not happen:

Another large-scale outbreak of coronavirus could take place in winter, South Korea’s top health official has warned, asking people not to let their guard down until a vaccine and effective treatment are developed. 

Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Jung Eun-kyeong issued the warning at a Monday briefing, citing the patterns of surge-flattened-resurgence in bygone pandemics and many facets of virus information that are still left in the dark. 

“COVID-19 shows its ups and downs when it comes to infection power” Jung said. “Cold air normally provides a favorable environment for viruses to flourish, while people spend more time indoors in winter. If these happen at the same time, in the worst-case scenario, it could lead to a second outbreak of a coronavirus pandemic.” 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I guess somebody has to pay for the free money the DPK plans to handout after their election win:

The ruling Democratic Party, now in control of both the Blue House and a majority in the National Assembly after last week’s elections, is expected to move swiftly to reshape real estate policy in Korea.

Lawmakers are expected to soon begin discussing proposals for a comprehensive real estate tax increase, with the goal of passing a bill before the current session ends at the end of May. The quick turnaround would allow the new rules to be applied before the June 1 deadline, when property taxes are levied.

The new proposals follow recent increases to the government’s assessed values of real estate.

The government is currently proposing increasing the maximum property tax for people who own a single apartment from 2.7 percent to 3 percent. For those with multiple apartments, the tax rate would increase from 3.2 percent to 4 percent. 

The government is also pushing to raise the maximum tax that could be levied on owners of two or more apartments in areas it has designated as speculative or overheated. In the case of Seoul, that’s every district.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the article says that apartment owners in Seocho and Gangnam could pay an additional $58,000 in property tax this year.

There is an interesting interview in the Korea Times with one of the North Korean restaurant workers that defected to South Korea back in 2016 I recommend everyone read:

The big question that so many have been asking: Did everyone want to escape?

A: It seems like a clear question, but the answer isn’t clear. Not all employees working at the Chinese restaurant wanted to come to South Korea. 

The context is that the work in China was tougher than we had expected. We had good situations in North Korea, so we were often openly wondering why we were working so hard; it was not as golden as it had been presented to us in North Korea. Therefore, most of us agreed to seek better working conditions in a different country.

We were not ignorant about the outside world. When I was in North Korea, I certainly knew about the possibility of escaping to South Korea, and from what I knew about the others, they did too. But we all had good lives in North Korea; why should we go to South Korea?

In discussing seeking better working conditions, about six or seven employees left. That group took taxis to the North Korean embassy to make it clear they were not participating in an escape.

Korea Times

You can read the rest of the interview at the link, but I also found it very interesting that she never met the Minbyun lawyers that were claiming that the North Koreans were kidnapped and wanted to go back.

Here is an article about a Korean-American adoptee who recently had the opportunity to return to South Korea:

Then, last year, I embarked on a two-week trip to South Korea primarily to attend the International Korean Adoptee Association (IKAA) gathering, held every three years. During this time, more than 550 Korean adoptees from all over the world convened at the Lotte Hotel in Seoul to attend workshops and social events.

For many Korean adoptees (or KADs, as we often refer to ourselves), myself included, it was our first time returning to Korea since we were adopted as infants or children. I was careful not to make the assumption that Korea would immediately feel like home—after all, I had no active memories of the country, and I knew having unrealistic expectations would set myself up for disappointment. I wondered if it was indeed possible to become attached to a place that, for me, held so much history, yet so little familiarity.

What I found, in the end, was the bittersweet grief that comes with being reunited with your birth country. I discovered that it was possible to swell with immeasurable pride at the beautiful, resilient country I was born into, and in the next moment be filled with agony that I was denied the chance to be raised among my culture, my language.

Quartz

You can read more at the link.