Another example of South Korea trying to get back to normal in the wake of steeply declining COVID rates:
A daughter hugs her hospitalized mother during her visit to a nursing home located in Daejeon City, June 2021. Yonhap
Starting Tuesday, people will be allowed to visit their elderly relatives at long-term care facilities in person. Elderly people who receive their second booster of a COVID-19 vaccine will also be permitted to leave their facility and stay out overnight.
Due to the COVID-19 resurgence this summer, in-person visits were suspended in late July.
A steady decrease in the daily number of infections and a more than 90-percent rate of vaccination with the second booster of the residents of such facilities has led the government to decide to loosen restrictions, the Central Disaster Management Headquarters (CDMH) said Friday.
Today is Gaecheonjeol, Korea's Nat'l Foudation Day. It is observed in both Koreas, although only in the South is it a public holiday. Normally a commemoration ceremony is held at Seoul's Sajik Park outside Dangun Shrine. Dangun is viewed as the progenitor of the Korean people. pic.twitter.com/TMNHlNh1W5
If anyone cares at this point there has been a steep drop in daily COVID cases in South Korea which so happens to coincide with the dropping of many COVID protocols:
This photo taken Oct. 2, 2022, shows merchants at a traditional market in Jongno, central Seoul, amid the waning wave of COVID-19 infections. (Yonhap)
South Korea’s new COVID-19 cases fell below 20,000 on Monday after staying in the 20,000s for the previous three days amid waning virus infections and fewer tests over the extended weekend.
The country reported 12,150 new COVID-19 infections, including 132 from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 24,831,761, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.
The latest virus wave, triggered by the spread of a highly contagious omicron variant, has been on a decline since mid-August, when it peaked at more than 180,000 cases.
The Yoon administration has decided to crackdown on Park Sang-hak and his Fighters for a Free North Korea:
Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector-turned-activist, holds a placard condemning North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the border town of Paju, South Korea, Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022. (Fighters For A Free North Korea/AP)
South Korean activists say they clashed with police while launching balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda materials across the North Korean border, ignoring their government’s plea to stop such activities since the North has threatened to respond with “deadly” retaliation.
Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector-turned-activist, said he his group had launched about eight balloons from an area in the South Korean border town of Paju Saturday night when police officers arrived at the scene and prevented them from sending their 12 remaining balloons. Park said police confiscated some of their materials and detained him and three other members of his group over mild scuffles with officers before releasing them after questioning.
Officials at the Paju police and the northern Gyeonggi provincial police agencies didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday.
The balloons flown toward North Korea carried masks, Tylenol and Vitamin C tablets along with propaganda materials, including booklets praising South Korea’s economic wealth and democratic society and hundreds of USB sticks containing videos of U.S. Congress members denouncing the North’s human rights record, Park said.
In my 4.5 years in South Korea, not once did women mention they needed a foreign nanny.
What they did want was equality. Gender discrimination is a real problem, at work and at home. And women want to feel safe – that laws will protect them. https://t.co/quvnN6vZiV
Korea's life and death issues just keep getting worse. Suicide rate edged up again last year, remaining the highest in OECD. Fertility is also the world's lowest. https://t.co/dyAKOAezNhpic.twitter.com/ADdyhjSI1y
The Tripitaka Koreana – carved on 81258 woodblocks in the 13th century – is the most successful large data transfer over time yet achieved by humankind. 52 million characters of information, transmitted over nearly 8 centuries with zero data loss – an unequalled achievement. 1/ pic.twitter.com/TaNkmlldhA
There was a horrible fire yesterday in Daejeon that unfortunately caused seven people to be killed:
This photo provided by a reader shows black smoke emanating from Hyundai Premium Outlet in Daejeon, 160 kilometers south of Seoul, on Sept. 26, 2022.
The death toll from an outlet mall fire in the central city of Daejeon has risen to seven, with one person under medical treatment after sustaining serious injuries, officials said Monday.
The blaze at Hyundai Premium Outlet in Daejeon, about 160 kilometers south of Seoul, is believed to have started from the basement parking lot at 7:45 a.m. and spread quickly on cardboard boxes, sending dark smoke filling the entire floor, according to witnesses and survivors. The fire was completely extinguished around 3 p.m.
Two men, one in his 50s and the other in his 30s, were found with serious injuries and sent to a hospital but were later pronounced dead in the morning. Five more people were later found dead while another person was sent to a hospital after sustaining serious injuries, according to the officials.
South Korea is taking longer than other countries to drop their COVID protocols, but they appear to be realizing that the protocols are arguably more detrimental to the population than the virus:
People, some wearing masks and others not, walk around a neighborhood in Jung District in central Seoul. Korea Times photo by Bae Woo-han
The government is expected to speed up the pace of its COVID-19 exit strategy after its decision to lift all outdoor mask mandates starting Monday.
The next steps are likely to range from ending the post-arrival PCR test to resuming face-to-face visits at nursing hospitals, and it is considering a step-by-step easing of the seven-day quarantine for infected patients.
Until Sunday, those at outdoor gatherings of 50 or more people, such as sporting events, had to wear masks, but it is no longer required, according to the government.
“We are clearly overcoming the hurdle of the recent resurgence of the coronavirus,” Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said during a government meeting at the Government Complex in Sejong, Friday. The government plans to map out a new set of low-risk quarantine measures to solve the public’s inconveniences based on feedback from experts, the prime minister said.
As long as the COVID virus continues to mutate herd immunity to it will continue to be a fantasy despite such a high level of antibodies in the Korean population:
Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency Commissioner Peck Kyong-ran, center, and Kwon Joon-wook, director of the Korea National Institute of Health, left, participate in a COVID-19 response briefing held at Government Complex Seoul, Friday. Newsis
While a recent government study found that almost all Koreans have developed antibodies against the coronavirus either by vaccination or natural infection, this finding does not mean that the population has achieved herd immunity, according to health officials.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) unveiled on Friday the results of its latest study, which showed that 97.4 percent of those surveyed had antibodies against the spike protein (S) of the coronavirus. The survey, co-organized with the Korea National Institute of Health (NIH), involved some 10,000 people aged five and above living in 17 cities and provinces.
A COVID-19 antibody test checks whether an individual has developed S-antibodies or nucleocapsid protein (N)-antibodies. S-antibodies are produced either through natural infection or vaccination, while the N-antibodies are formed only through natural infection.
Although the vast majority of the population has developed antibodies against the coronavirus, people should still remain vigilant and receive an updated booster shot, health officials warn. (……)
He also said that the latest study has only confirmed the presence of antibodies for the original COVID-19 virus, not for the Omicron variant and its subvariants.
“Antibodies diminish over time and the possible emergence of new variants may weaken the protection offered by antibodies from a previous variant,” he said, explaining that inoculation via a booster shot is essential after four months or longer following either infection or vaccination.
