Category: Seoul

Any place with people packed into it is a risk to spread this virus, so the nightclubs and bars will likely be closed for a quite a while:

The Seoul city government on Saturday effectively suspended business at clubs and bars in the city after recent infections in the city’s popular multicultural neighborhood of Itaewon put health authorities on alert over a possibly bigger outbreak.

Under an administrative order that has gone into effect immediately, all clubs, bars, “room salons” and other nightlife establishments across the capital will be banned from hosting crowds of people, virtually suspending businesses at such venues.

“Such facilities have to suspend business immediately and will face strict punishment if they breach (the order),” Mayor Park Won-soon said in a press briefing, adding the order will remain in effect under further notice.

“Carelessness can lead to an explosion in infections — we clearly realized this through the group infections seen in the Itaewon club case,” Park said, urging businesses and the public to closely abide by quarantine measures.

Yonhap

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This is probably going to be a reoccurring reality with the opening of clubs, dealing with cluster infections:

Thirteen more cases of the novel coronavirus were confirmed Friday, associated with a patient who visited clubs and bars in Seoul’s popular multicultural neighborhood of Itaewon over the weekend.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said that 14 of the patient’s contacts, including three foreign nationals and one Army officer, have so far tested positive for COVID-19. All patients are aged between 19 and 37.

The 29-year-old patient, whom health authorities consider the first patient in the cluster infection, visited five clubs and bars in Itaewon from Friday night to the early hours of Saturday last week.

Twelve of the 13 new cases were those who had visited the Itaewon clubs, with the number feared to rise, considering that at least 1,510 people were estimated to have visited the five nightlife establishments including King Club, Trunk Club and Club Queen.

Yonhap News

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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

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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

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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.

Despite the drop in Beijing’s pollution levels, it is still far worse than Seoul’s:

Ultrafine dust in the capitals of Korea and China are composed of similar elements, though some of the elements’ ratios differ greatly, a joint research team of Korean and Chinese researchers announced Wednesday.

The Chinese government’s restrictions on fossil fuel emissions seem to be causing the difference, as Beijing’s air quality improves – and Seoul’s does not. 

At this point, however, further analysis is needed to pin down the exact reasons why. 

Korea’s joint research with China was the latest effort by the two neighboring countries to battle ultrafine dust, which Korea often blames China for, even as the latter adamantly denies responsibility for Korea’s air pollution.

Jeon Kwon-ho, a researcher from the National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER) in Incheon, said the fundamental purpose of the recent research was to find out the sources of ultrafine dust in Seoul and Beijing. 

So far, the research team can say that the pollutants causing ultrafine dust seem to be derived from industrial plants and vehicle exhaust emissions.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I guess this is better than the Hitler bars in South Korea:

Tucked away in the dazzling neon of Seoul’s Hongdae nightlife district, a small building bears an image of a North Korean-looking construction worker pointing to the slogan: “Look! It’s the Pyongyang Bar!”

There are no post, telephone or transport links between the two halves of the divided Korean peninsula, but Seoul’s only North Korean-themed pub aims to give its patrons a taste of their nuclear-armed neighbour.

Owner Jang Woo-kyung has never been north of the Demilitarized Zone — the two Koreas are technically still at war and Southerners need their government’s permission to visit — but the bar’s decor is inspired by imagery from across the border.

The premises are festooned with North Korean-style posters, the lime green walls reminiscent of the pastel shades seen on Pyongyang apartment blocks, and slogans painted around the pub are written in a white-on-red script similar to the North’s propaganda.

But rather than praise North Korean leaders, which might fall foul of the South’s National Security Act, the messages proclaim more prosaic goals: “Let’s provide the most cold beer!”

Others combine health regulations with allusions to the North’s uncompromising judicial system: “Execution by firing squad if caught smoking inside.”

– ‘Loyal to capitalism’ –

Even before the business opened, Jang was ordered by authorities to remove portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il — the grandfather and father of current leader Kim Jong Un — from the building’s exterior.

“I have no intention of dignifying or praising North Korea,” said Jang, whose business cards use the South’s English spelling for the North’s capital, Pyeongyang. “I’m just a man loyal to capitalism.”

AFP

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