Tag: Seoul

It will be interesting to see how eager the people in Seoul are to rush back to these nightclubs and hostess bars:

Seoul health authorities warned clubs that reopened Monday after a 12-day operation ban to strictly abide by hygiene guidelines or face another shutdown order.All nightclubs, hostess and karaoke bars and other nighttime establishments in Seoul, called the “entertainment industry” in Korean, were forced to close on April 8 after a hostess in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, tested positive for the coronavirus.  

They were allowed to open on Monday, a day after the central government’s so-called high-intensity social distancing campaign wrapped up.  

The high-intensity campaign did formally end on Sunday, but central government officials said that didn’t mean social distancing was entirely over. Authorities outlined a new campaign that will last 16 days from Monday through Children’s Day on May 5, easing several guidelines in the campaign that ran for four weeks but fundamentally leaving hygiene recommendations intact. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Fortunately no one was hurt in this derailment:

A subway train derailed near Yeongdeungpo Station in southwestern Seoul on Tuesday, delaying and partially disrupting services on line No. 1.

No casualties have been reported. The accident took place around 6:28 a.m., halting traffic on both ways of the express lines for line No. 1, according to subway operators.

Regular trains on line No. 1 are in operation, but delays have been reported. 

Around 100 passengers who were on the derailed train walked to the nearby Singil Station, also on line No. 1, to transfer to a regular train.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It seems that South Korea has reached the stage where authorities are quickly reacting to cluster infections of the coronavirus before they become major outbreaks like we saw in Daegu:

Another cluster transmission of the new coronavirus has infected 40 followers of a protestant church in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, municipal government said Monday, raising an alarm bell on the steady spread of cluster infections in the capital area.

The city government of Seongnam said 40 members of Grace River Church, including the pastor and his wife, have tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a Sunday service about a week ago.

Six other people who had come into contact with the infected church members have also been confirmed as coronavirus patients, it noted.

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.

This is pretty concerning that doctors currently do not know how the latest Korean to contract the coronavirus became infected with it:

The 30th case of the new coronavirus in Korea was confirmed Monday as the wife of Patient No. 29, an 82-year-old Korean man who had been volunteering with low-income senior citizens and spent days visiting several medical clinics and pharmacies before his diagnosis.  

Patient No. 30, a 68-year-old Korean woman, tested positive for the virus the previous day, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). Her husband, Patient No. 29, who had not traveled overseas in recent months nor come into contact with any known coronavirus patients, was confirmed as having tested positive for the new coronavirus earlier Sunday.  

How the elderly couple, who are residents of Jongno District, central Seoul, contracted the virus is still unclear. Authorities are scrambling to trace all the people they came in contact with in the past two weeks amid heightened concerns of secondary and tertiary infections.  

Patient No. 29 had a pre-existing heart condition and visited two different local clinics and two pharmacies prior to going to Korea University Anam Hospital’s emergency room in Seongbuk District, central Seoul, Saturday morning, with complaints of chest pains. The doctor there discovered through a CT scan that the man had symptoms of pneumonia and tested him for the coronavirus. The couple is being treated at Seoul National University Hospital in central Seoul, one of the state-designated facilities for the virus, officially called Covid-19, since Sunday, and they are both in a stable condition with mild fevers. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but if they cannot put this man in proximity of other coronavirus patients that likely means there are people infected in Seoul with the virus that don’t know it.