Tag: coronavirus

The woman from Daegu who it is unknown how she contracted the coronavirus has now being called a “superspreader” because of how she likely infected 18 other people at her church:

South Korea confirmed 20 more cases of the novel coronavirus Wednesday, bringing the total number of infections here to 51, with most new patients traced to church services, stoking concerns that the country may identify more virus patients despite tighter quarantine measures.

According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), 18 of the new patients are in Daegu, 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, and in the adjacent North Gyeongsang region.

The country’s 31st patient, probably a coronavirus “super spreader,” is believed to have infected at least 15 others and came in contact with 166 people. The 61-year-old woman, a Daegu resident, started to complain of a fever on Feb. 10 and was confirmed to be infected Tuesday.

A preliminary epidemiological investigation shows that the potential super spreader attended several of the same church services as the other newly confirmed patients and had direct contact with one person at a Daegu hospital.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this lady for Daegu has been using mass transportation in the days before the symptoms of coronavirus began to show. If people in her church became infected it seems people in mass transit with her could get infected as well.

I think one thing that will come out of this is that church attendance across the country will drop.

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.

The way I look at this is that by releasing the locations the government is putting pressure on these businesses to disinfect their buildings. After being cleaned these businesses are probably the safe place to go visit afterwards:

Doctors from the Korean Society for Preventive Medicine and the Korean Society of Epidemiology said Monday in a joint statement that the government’s disclosure of places visited by people later diagnosed with the new coronavirus had “zero effect” on public health, saying it only aroused unnecessary anxiety.

The two groups said members of the public shouldn’t worry about contracting the disease by visiting the establishments or passing by areas where infected patients went – as long as those areas have been disinfected. 

“The biggest obstacles for overcoming the new coronavirus crisis are fake news and disinformation, excessive anxiety, groundless ‘solutions’ constantly raised by non-experts, stigma against patients and people who contacted them and a lack of voluntary help from people with symptoms of the virus or those who are subject to epidemiological investigations,” read the joint statement.

“In terms of public health, there’s zero effect in shutting down schools and stores near places infected patients visited,” the statement continued. “Such acts only cause unnecessary social costs.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

At least it appears that Korean traditional markets are not selling bat meat which is what is believed to have caused the coronavirus outbreak in China:

The Seoul Metropolitan Government conducted a rare inspection of restaurants in the city’s three major traditional markets, Wednesday, for the possible illegal consumption of bat meat, as part of its efforts to prevent the spread of a coronavirus, according to city officials.

On Wednesday, three additional cases of infection were confirmed here, putting the total number at 19. 

The inspection team consisting of city officials overseeing hygiene matters, police and consumer rights activists looked into restaurants in Daerim Central Market in Yeungdeungpo, Gyeongdong Market in Dongdaemun and Joyang Market in Gwangjin; areas that are frequented by Chinese immigrants and tourists.

The selling of bat meat is illegal here, but the inspection was carried out on suspicions that small quantities could potentially be brought to those venues from China. The officials said that so far they had not found any irregularities. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It took long then I expected, but here is the inevitable article about how racist Americans are towards Koreans because of the coronavirus:

Koreans in US discriminated over coronavirus

Starting last week, Kathy Yang has been getting a weird feeling while carrying on her daily business. 

”At work, at Costco, at the doctor’s office…I keep getting this odd feeling that people are looking at me in a way unlike before,” said the 41-year-old, who works as a bank teller in the Bay Area. ”Their facial expression looks as if they’re trying to decipher if I’m sick or not.” 

So far, only 11 cases of the China-originated coronavirus have been confirmed in the U.S. But fear and racism over the new and unpredictable virus appear to be spreading faster than the virus itself. 

”I’ve lived in the U.S. for more than 15 years and this is the first time I’ve felt discriminated to this level on so many occasions in such a short period of time,” said Yang. 

Many others living in the U.S. say they’ve also been racially victimized because of the virus. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.