I wonder how long this is going to last? Will it be shutdown if another COVID wave breaks out in Singapore?:
The first tourists from Singapore since the start of the coronavirus pandemic arrived Monday in South Korea under a bilateral travel bubble agreement.
A travel bubble refers to a quarantine-free travel partnership between two or more cities or countries with similar levels of COVID-19 cases.
The tourists landed at Incheon International Airport earlier in the day and will be free to travel around the country without quarantine if they test negative on a polymerase chain reaction test, the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) said.
Among them, a group of Singaporeans working in the tourism industry and reporters were invited by KTO to visit major tourist attractions in the greater Seoul area and Gangwon Province this week.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
It seems to me public sector employees should cater their schedules to better serve the public they are there to support and not the other way around:
Controversy is rising over an increasing demand from civil servants across the country to guarantee them a lunch break from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. as offered to other workers.
Korea Times
They are demanding all services at public offices, including the issuance of official documents, be suspended during the one-hour lunchtime to guarantee their “rights,” but critics say this will cause inconvenience, especially to workers who have to utilize their own lunchtime to visit public offices.
The Korean Government Employees’ Union (KGEU) has recently intensified calls for the guaranteed lunch break to safeguard their health and welfare rights, citing the Labor Standards Act and service regulations for civil servants that stipulate their lunchtime is from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
The law and regulations, however, also stipulate that heads of local governments can decide to advance or put off the lunchtime by one hour, considering the characteristics of the duties of civil servants.
Consequently, most civil servants working at public services centers usually rotate their lunchtimes from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. or from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., so services at such centers can continue during the “original” lunch hour.
You can read more at the link.
That didn’t take long, just a week ago the Korean government was saying it was no longer going to use case numbers to make COVID decisions. The Health and Welfare Ministry even said that cases would not matter if they even reached 10,000 a day. Now that case numbers have hit 2,500 they are backtracking:
South Korea may not further ease its coronavirus restrictions, the country’s top public health official warned Thursday, amid a spike in COVID-19 cases.
South Korea began easing virus curbs in November in the first of the three-phase “living with COVID-19” scheme. It had planned to move to the second phase in mid-December after a two-week evaluation period.
Jeong Eun-kyeong, commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said it may be difficult to move to the second phase of the scheme if new cases continue to grow.
The country reported 2,520 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total caseload to 388,351, the KDCA said.
Thursday’s tally marked a slight hike from the previous day’s 2,425, which marked the first time in six days that daily infections exceeded 2,400.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
This is just another example that a country should not rely on China for key ingredients in their supply chain for critical needs especially something as important as diesel fuel:
South Korea said Sunday it plans to import urea water solution, a key material used in diesel vehicles to reduce emissions, from Australia this week in a bid to ease its supply shortage that has caused soaring prices.
The government has decided to mobilize military aircraft to bring 20,000 liters of urea solution from Australia, the finance ministry said after a meeting on security and the economy.
“The country plans to mobilize all available diplomatic channels to import thousands of tonnes of urea within this year not only from Australia but also from other countries, including Vietnam,” the government said.
South Korea has been grappling with a shortage of urea water solution, known as diesel exhaust fluid, in recent weeks, as China tightened exports of fertilizers and related materials, including urea, in October amid a power crisis caused by a coal supply shortage. Coal is the main feedstock for urea.
South Korea heavily relies on China for its supply of urea water solution, as 97.6 percent of its import came from China in the first nine months of this year. In around 2013, local manufacturers of urea shut down business as they lost price competitiveness over foreign rivals, such as China and Russia.
In Korea, a relatively high portion of diesel cars caused a shortage of urea water solution.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Good to see that things are slowly getting back to normal:
People flocked to churches and temples in South Korea on Sunday to attend worship services on the first weekend since the country began easing virus restrictions as part of steps to return to pre-pandemic normalcy.
South Korea on Monday kicked off the first of the three-stage “living with COVID-19” scheme to gradually phase out coronavirus restrictions as more than 70 percent of the population have been fully vaccinated.
Under the eased rules, in-person worship services are now allowed to take up to 50 percent of their capacity regardless of attendees’ vaccination status.
If the attendees are comprised only of fully vaccinated people or those who submit negative PCR test results, no such cap is applied.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
What kind of sad life must you have if the first thing you want to do when living with COVID measures are implemented is go protest at a comfort woman statue:
Boisterous shouting matches plagued the site in central Seoul of a girl’s statue symbolizing victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery Wednesday as supporters and detractors of the victims resumed rallies for the first time since distancing rules were eased.
Before rallies were banned under COVID-19 rules last year, the site near Japan’s Embassy had become a battleground every Wednesday, as supporters of the sexual slavery victims held a weekly “Wednesday rally” demanding an apology from Japan and conservative detractors held an opposing the protests.
After more than a year of hiatus, rallies resumed between the two sides at the statue site Wednesday, as eased social distancing rules went into force this week in line with the government’s “living with COVID-19” scheme.
Early Wednesday morning, about 10 anti-Japanese activists turned up at the site, holding banners calling for the resolution of the sexual slavery issue and shouting through loudspeakers that they won’t leave until all “pro-Japanese” forces are gone from the site.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but the fact that there was pro-Japanese protesters is actually pretty amazing. Anyway judging by the picture the police greatly outnumbered everyone at the protest.
Studies have shown that vaccinated people are far less likely to be hospitalized. With Korea’s high vaccination rate it makes sense that case numbers should not be the metric to follow but hospitalizations and deaths instead:
Korea will gradually return to normal as planned even if infections rise to 10,000 a day, an official at the Ministry of Health and Welfare promised Monday.
The number of daily COVID-19 cases has been rising again to around 2,000 a day since last week as Koreans threw caution to the wind ahead of the phased return to normal that started Monday.
But the government is determined to shift its focus from counting infections to severe cases and deaths because the vaccination rate has increased.
“The ratio of COVID patients between unvaccinated and fully vaccinated people is about 70 to 30. If this trend continues, the medical system will be capable of handling some 5,000 new cases a day,” Son Young-rae of the ministry said.
Chosun Ilbo
You can read more at the link.
So it begins:
South Korea loosened its COVID-19 social distancing measures Monday following “public fatigue” from the prolonged pandemic response and the increased number of vaccinations. The government’s plan, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, is to ease restrictions over three steps, each lasting four weeks, followed by a two-week evaluation period. Each step will introduce new business hours, curfews and limits to public gatherings.
Public businesses in metropolitan areas have been typically open until 10 p.m. during the pandemic. Under the plan announced Monday, restaurants and cafes are allowed open for their normal business hours. Time restrictions and music bans at gyms and bathhouses were also lifted.
The Health and Welfare ministry described its step-by-step plan as “the roadmap for gradual return to normal,” with the goal of becoming “the better Korea.” (………)
U.S. Forces Korea, the military command responsible for roughly 28,500 troops on the peninsula, announced last month that the South Korean government would recognize proof-of-vaccination cards issued for U.S. service members.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
