Category: Korea-General Topics

It definitely appears the family from Gwangju killed themselves after their car was found submerged in the waters of Wando island:

Police investigating the mysterious deaths of a 10-year-old girl and her parents found last month in a car sunk in waters off the southwestern coast said Wednesday that sleeping pill ingredients have been found in their bodies.

The Gwangju Nambu Police Station said it was recently informed by the National Forensic Service of the detection of sleeping pill ingredients in the remains of Cho Yu-na, a Gwangju elementary school student, and her parents in their 30s.

Cho and her parents, who resided in the southwestern metropolitan city of Gwangju, were found dead on June 29 inside their family car pulled out of waters off Wando, a quiet island about 120 kilometers south of their home. The family went missing about a month earlier after last being seen alive on closed-circuit TV at a Wando guesthouse on May 30.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but it seems very selfish to commit suicide with the 10-year old girl that had no say in this.

The BA.5 variant is surging in South Korea and many other parts of the world. South Korea is increasing quarantine measures based supposedly on science. We will see what that means soon, but at least the social distancing mandates are coming back yet. However, in the below article there is a great discussion about the lowering of the vaccine booster age to 50 because it essentially does nothing:

The government on Wednesday announced a set of quarantine measures in an effort to respond to the resurgence of infections driven by the highly contagious BA.5 subvariant of Omicron, which is soon expected to become the dominant strain here.

These were the first pandemic-related measures introduced by the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, which has vowed to carry out quarantine policies based on scientific data.

Medical experts, however, had doubts about whether the measures would be effective in curbing the new wave of infections, which may lead to as many as 200,000 daily cases by mid-September.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) decided to lower the age of eligibility for a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to 50, from the current 60. People with underlying diseases aged 18 and over have also become eligible for the second booster.

The government did not reinstate social distancing measures such as limits on the operating hours of multiuse facilities or the number of people at private gatherings, which were lifted in April.

“Considering the high transmissibility of the BA.5 strain, from the point of view of returning to normalcy, as well as in terms of public acceptance, we believe that social distancing measures, if reintroduced, would have limited effects in curbing the spread of the virus,” said KDCA Commissioner Peck Kyeong-ran during a briefing. 

“But we may review partially bringing back the distancing measures if the fatality rate rises,” she added.

However, the newly-announced measures have raised eyebrows among some medical experts.

Chon Eun-mi, a respiratory disease specialist at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital, viewed that lowering the age limit of the second booster was rather unnecessary.

“It is hard to understand why the government has expanded the fourth shot to people in their 50s when the fatality rate among that age group is near zero,” she said. 

According to the latest KDCA data, the figure stands at 0.04 percent, lower than that of the total population, which is 0.13 percent.

“Although vaccines have proven to be effective in preventing severe illnesses or deaths, they are not a panacea. During the BA.5 wave, anyone can get the virus, regardless of the person’s vaccination status,” she said, given that the BA.5 subvariant substantially evades antibodies created by the currently available vaccines or by infection.

Chon went on to say that, right now, the government should more actively use antiviral treatments to prevent vulnerable groups from falling into critical condition, rather than counting on the available vaccines to protect them.

“Instead of expanding the age eligibility for the fourth dose, the authorities should have introduced measures to increase the inoculation rate among the elderly aged over 60, who account for over 90 percent of critical cases and deaths,” said Kim Woo-joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University Guro Hospital.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It was this time last year when the Delta variant surge happened and now it appears the world is entering the BA.5 variant surge this summer:

South Korea’s new coronavirus cases surged to a two-month high of over 37,000 on Tuesday, driven by the spread of a highly contagious new omicron subvariant and deepening concerns over another virus wave.

The country added 37,360 new COVID-19 infections, including 260 from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 18,561,861, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.

Tuesday’s figure is the highest since May 11, when the daily count came to 43,908 in the aftermath of the omicron wave. It also more than doubled from 19,371 cases logged a week earlier, as the country has seen an upturn in infections from end-June.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but like I have been saying for a long time the daily case rate should not be the number people focus on, it should be hospital rates. With all these tens of thousands of daily cases, according to the article only 74 people are hospitalized. Despite this fact I expect governments to consider returning to the usual protocols of enforced mask wear, social distancing, etc. Already on Okinawa the government there is leaning in that direction.

Good luck trying to get people to believe this, though the inflation crisis I think is starting to make realize that giving out free money maybe is not a good thing:

 President Yoon Suk-yeol sounded the alarm on the country’s fiscal health on Thursday, saying people should wake up from the “fantasy” that increasing government spending will automatically improve people’s livelihoods.

Yoon made the remark while presiding over a fiscal strategy meeting with members of the government and the private sector at Chungbuk National University in Cheongju, 112 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

“We must wake up from the fantasy of fiscal universalism,” Yoon said, describing it as the belief that if the government spends more of its budget, “automatically, the economy will grow and people’s livelihoods will improve.”

“In order to overcome the people’s livelihood issues and fiscal crisis that we face, the government has to be the first to tighten its belt,” he added.

The finance ministry unveiled plans to reduce the fiscal deficit to a size equivalent to less than 3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), from the 5.1 percent estimate for this year, and to cut the debt-to-GDP ratio to around “the midpoint” of the 50 percent range by 2027 to help slow the pace of the national debt.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is another example of South Korea’s growing space program:

Korea on Tuesday started transporting the country’s first lunar orbiter to the United States ahead of next month’s launch using a SpaceX rocket, officials said.

Korea plans to launch the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, also known as Danuri, aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 8:24 a.m. on Aug. 3 (Korean Time).

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, Danuri was sent from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute in Daejeon, 160 kilometers south of Seoul, to Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, in a specially designed container.

The orbiter will be flown to Orlando International Airport and arrive at the Floridian space center Thursday. It will later undergo maintenance, assembly and other pre-launch preparations for about a month before launch.

Danuri will begin circling around the moon in December and conduct a yearlong mission to observe it using an array of instruments, including cameras and magnetometers. It will also identify potential landing sites for future lunar missions.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The Joong Ang Ilbo has article published about the difficulties that African students are having in South Korea:

Karen, Lanre and Fatima are all black students from Africa living in Korea and studying at different Korean universities. They have asked to withhold their identities as they worry that they could face a backlash after speaking out about their experience of studying in Korea.  All three students agree that just being black in Korea attracts a lot of attention and discomfort.  
   
“When I ride the subway, people look at me and never want to sit next to me unless it is the last seat available,” Karen said.    
   
Lanre described how once, while he was out walking, “a little girl saw me and then went to hide behind her parents while looking at me as if I wanted to hurt her.”   
   
This kind of reaction seems to be common and could come from a lack of education on racial issues.  
   
Fatima also noted that some cultural features like braids, which are worn by some Korean rappers for a hip-hop look, are appropriated, and used in a different way than their original meaning.  
   
“Before doing it, you try to learn what is behind it and why these people are doing this, you don’t just do it for the style” said Fatima.    
   
Lanre also said that some of his classmates in Suwon kept repeating that Africa was very poor, and even asked questions like, “Do you have cars?” This type of behavior can continue to convey a lot of clichés, prejudices and preconceived notions about African people.  
 
The issue is not only a lack of education on racial issues, but also seems to extend to the culture in some schools and universities.  
   
Karen arrived in Korea in 2014 and went to study in a Korean high school once she finished learning Korean. On her very first day in school she sat in the front row and, “the teacher came up to me, took my hand, and asked me if I was dirty or if I was just black.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Fortunately there are still plenty of people willing to fight to defend South Korea, but the trend from this survey is showing that the number of people willing to fight in decreasing:

Nearly seven out of 10 South Korean nationals are willing to fight for their country in the event of war, according to a recent poll.

The World Values Survey polled 1,245 South Koreans, 67.4 percent of whom expressed their willingness to fight for their country, while 32.6 percent were unwilling to take up arms to defend their homeland.

South Korea ranked 40th out of 79 countries polled between 2017 and 2021 when it comes to the percentage of the population willing to fight for their country in the event of a war, but the percentage of people who are unwilling to take up arms has been steadily increasing, compared to 6.5 percent in a 1981 survey.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I wonder what the number would be if the people unwilling to fight did not have the option of fleeing South Korea to another country. Would they fight then?

The numbers may be rising above 10,000 but it is no where near the peak of 620,000 cases a day Korea had back in March:

 South Korea’s new coronavirus cases stayed above 10,000 for the second consecutive day Sunday as the daily cases seemed to be rising again after months of subsiding.

The country added 10,059 COVID-19 infections, including 191 cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 18,389,611, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. 

The country reported eight COVID-19 deaths, raising the death toll to 24,570. The fatality rate stood at 0.13 percent.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This sounds like a positive encounter between President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida:

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol talked briefly with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a gala dinner for NATO summit participants in Madrid on Tuesday and expressed hope for the future-oriented development of relations between the two countries, officials said.

The encounter, which lasted three to four minutes at the dinner party hosted by Spain’s King Felipe VI, began as Kishida offered greetings to Yoon with congratulations on his inauguration and the local election victory of Yoon’s ruling party, according to Yoon’s office.

Yoon said in response that he wishes Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party good results in Japan’s upcoming upper house elections.

“After the upper house elections, I and my aides plan to resolve pending issues between Korea and Japan as early as possible and move forward in a future-oriented manner,” Yoon was quoted as telling Kishida.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.