Category: Korea-General Topics

This sounds more like a political campaign event for everyone involved to show they are “doing something” especially for President Moon who faces a parliamentary election in April:

President Moon Jae-in is seeking a summit to come up with international cooperation in COVID-19 responses, actively pushing for a G20 teleconference over the issue. 

The proposal comes as the number of novel coronavirus infections is spiking across the world, and has gained backing from key members such as France and the U.S., according to Cheong Wa Dae.

During a March 13 phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, President Moon proposed that they seek a teleconference among G20 members, which the former agreed to, the presidential office said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I find it hard to believe that health authorities around the world can’t work together on the coronavirus issue without a G-20 meeting.

I have noticed more articles in the U.S. media highlighting South Korea’s success testing for the coronavirus:

Dr. Ogan Gurel, who got his medical degree from Columbia in New York and moved to Seoul 10 years ago, cites drive-by testing as one of “a panoply of measures” designed to stop the virus from overwhelming this country of 51 million people.

“There is no silver bullet,” says Gurel, who teaches medicine and provides scientific advice. “Individually, people might suffer, but in aggregate they end up with qualitative stabilization.” That is to say, for the overall population the disease is brought under control.

The proof is in the numbers showing new cases in South Korea decreasing steadily–just 110 on Thursday, the lowest in more than two weeks, while 177 were declared cured and sent home. All told, the number of cases totals 7,979, but the general feeling sense is the worst is over.

“Korea is setting a good example for the U.S.,” said Jang Sung-eun, who still rides the subways to work every day while many of her colleagues try to work from home. “They say we Koreans are rather effective in dealing with the problem.”

Such guarded optimism reflects a discernible shift in national mood from the near-panic that engulfed the country after the virus was discovered to be emanating from a church in the city of Daegu, 170 miles southeast of Seoul. The church was one of dozens run by the secretive Shincheonji sect, whose leader, Lee Man-hee, has proclaimed himself the embodiment of Jesus Christ.

“There was some resistance among them to testing,” says Gurel, but by now almost all the sect’s 230,000 members have been checked. Most of those suffering from the disease were members of the church or caught the virus from members who may have passed it on through two or three others, who in turn transmitted it to still more contacts.

Korean self-discipline and community cohesiveness explain much of the success in coming to terms with an illness that remains almost out of control elsewhere.

Daily Beast

You can read more at the link, but these articles don’t mention how travel from China was not restricted which helped the spread of the virus in South Korea. Likewise it took time for South Korea to get their testing and quarantine strategy in place after the initial shock of the mass infections in Daegu.

The U.S. is now experiencing the initial shock Koreans felt last month and now authorities are scrambling to implement their own testing and quarantine strategy. There is definitely best practices that can be learned from South Korea, but they will have to be adapted to deal with a far larger & diverse population, spread out over a huge landmass, with different privacy laws.

Some further good news for South Korea is that President Trump is not putting any new restrictions on the country and instead focusing on Europe:

The United States may “re-evaluate” its travel warning for Korea and consider an early lifting of restrictions as the new coronavirus situation in the country improves, U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday.

Trump announced in a national address that the United States will be suspending most travel from Europe for 30 days starting Friday at midnight, to protect against the coronavirus pandemic. The entry ban excludes Britain and also exempts U.S. citizens and permanent residents.  

“At the same time, we are monitoring the situation in China and in South Korea,” said Trump. “And, as their situation improves, we will re-evaluate the restrictions and warnings that are currently in place for a possible early opening.”  

The U.S. State Department has a travel advisory of Level 4, the highest in its four-tier system, urging Americans not to travel to Daegu, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Korea. It has a Level 3 alert for the rest of Korea, urging Americans to “reconsider” visits to the country. Korea has in place in its airports a multi-tiered health screening of individuals flying to the United States, as requested by the Trump administration.  

Trump said in his speech that the European Union “failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots” and that as a result, “a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but members of the Korean government instead of making racist comments about U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris should instead be thanking him because he probably made the recommendation to not add any travel restrictions on Korea.

The trend is that things are getting better in South Korea which also continues to feature a very low mortality rate from COVID-19:

South Korea saw another decline in its daily new infections Friday, as massive testings in the southeastern city of Daegu, the epicenter of the new coronavirus here, were nearing an end, but health authorities were ramping up measures to contain cluster infections across the nation.

The 110 new cases of the coronavirus, which were detected Thursday and marked the lowest number of daily infections in more than two weeks, brought the nation’s total infections to 7,979. 

A total of 177 patients were discharged from hospitals Thursday after they were declared cured, marking the biggest one-day increase so far and exceeding the number of daily new infections for the first time since Jan. 20, when the virus was first detected on South Korean soil. 

Thursday’s additional cases, which followed the 114 new cases detected Wednesday, were also far below the daily increases of 500 or more last week.

So far, 67 people, mostly elderly patients with underlying illnesses, have died in South Korea from the respiratory virus that emerged in China late last year, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if you do the math 67 deaths out of 7,979 people infected comes out to a far less than 1% mortality rate. The rate is even lower because many people likely had the coronavirus and were not tested and recovered from it.

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.

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.

There has been outbreak of the coronavirus in Seoul from a call center:

 With at least 50 cases, a call center in southwestern Seoul emerged as the biggest COVID-19 infection cluster here Tuesday, triggering concerns over potential mass transmission in the metropolitan area that is home to 25 million, or nearly half of the country’s population.

A high-rise in the neighborhood of Sindorim was closed and disinfected late Monday after workers at a call center on its 11th floor were confirmed as patients, according to Guro Ward, which oversees Sindorim.

In a meeting with other provincial officials, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon said 64 cases occurred from the outbreak, while the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) earlier said 50 cases have been traced to the call center.

A total of 46 employees who live in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province have tested positive, in addition to four family members of them. The KCDC said all diagnosed employees worked on the 11th floor, without wearing masks.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.