Tag: coronavirus

The trickle of positive coronavirus cases from USFK personnel arriving in South Korea continues:

The number of coronavirus cases affiliated with U.S. Forces Korea soared to 111, with 12 more troops and a dependent testing positive after traveling from the United States to South Korea over the past two weeks, the military said Wednesday.

The increase reflected a surge in infections in the United States. USFK has insisted the arrivals pose no risk to local communities because they are tightly controlled with a strict testing and two-week quarantine process.

Ten service members and the dependent who tested positive arrived at Incheon International Airport on commercial flights on July 8, 9 and 19, according to a press release.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

I think this is demonstrating how widespread coronavirus now is within the U.S. population with so many people testing positive for it after arrival in Korea:

Fourteen more Americans affiliated with the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) have tested positive for the new coronavirus upon arrival in South Korea, the U.S. military said Thursday, amid growing concerns over a surge in imported virus cases.

USFK has seen a marked increase in the number of COVID-19 patients among newly assigned service members and related personnel in recent weeks along with the fast spread of the virus in the U.S.

The latest cases brought the total number of USFK-related infections to 88. Of them, 52 were reported in July.

Of the 14 new patients, 12 were service members and two were dependents, and they tested positive after arriving here between July 9 and 15, according to USFK.

Nine soldiers and two family members arrived at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, on a U.S. government-chartered flight. The remaining three arrived at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, from their home country on commercial flights, it added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on USFK coronavirus cases:

Nine people with U.S. Forces Korea tested positive for the coronavirus after traveling to South Korea from the United States, pushing the total number of confirmed cases in isolation to 21, the military said Friday.

Concern about a spillover effect has prompted USFK to follow the South Korean government’s lead in requiring coronavirus tests for all passengers from abroad upon arrival and before they are allowed to exit a mandatory two-week quarantine.

Seven of the service members tested positive after arriving on two separate government-chartered flights known as the Patriot Express, which land at Osan Air Base, USFK said in a statement.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, the recent positive tests from arriving personnel has pushed the USFK total to 63. However, the last local transmission of the coronavirus occurred all the way back on April 14th.

For some expats living in Seoul you may be getting a check from the City of Seoul soon:

Foreigners living in Seoul will receive a one-time Covid-19 relief payment, a city official confirmed Wednesday.  

During a plenary session Tuesday, the Seoul Metropolitan Council passed a supplementary budget bill that included plans to allocate 33 billion won ($27.4 million) for a program to dole out emergency funds to foreigners.  

But the city has been light on basic details, including the timing and payment amounts.  

Seoul’s decision to provide Covid-19 emergency payments to foreigners came less than a month after Korea’s human rights watchdog, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, issued a policy recommendation to the metropolitan government of Seoul and the provincial government of Gyeonggi not to discriminate against foreigners when providing Covid-19 relief. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

It seems inevitable that the coronavirus is going to infect kids at school and I am surprised it has taken this long for it to happen:

Three infection cases of school kids in Daejeon have sent officials and educators to scurry for measures to curb transmission among young children Wednesday, as they might be the country’s first school transmissions.

Three fifth-graders at Cheondong Elementary School in Daejeon, about 160 kilometers south of Seoul, were confirmed to have tested positive for the new coronavirus, according to city officials.

One is a classmate of the school’s first patient, who was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 on Monday. The two students took classes at the same cram school, but their schedules were found not to have overlapped.

Another student was found to have come into contact with the first patient at a gymnasium. The two students are known to be quite close to each other, visiting each other’s houses frequently.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the infection may have happened outside of the school as well. Bottomline though is that schools just need to have a plan in place in how to deal with infections when they happen because they will.

On PBS Frontline this week there is a really good show about the United States’ coronavirus response. Part of the show compares the U.S. to what South Korea did. ROK Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha was heavily featured in the show.

The major difference pointed out which has been discussed before on this blog is how quickly South Korea was able to ramp up the private industry to produce test kits. They did this in a week. The CDC in the United States decided to create their own test kits which were tainted due to poor manufacturing and caused a month long delay in ramping up testing, which it eventually turned to private industry to augment.

You can watch, The Virus: What Went Wrong at the link.

It looks like it is not a good time to be an Itaewon business owner:

COVID-19 has done no favors to food and beverage businesses since the initial outbreak in Daegu months ago, but many restaurants continue to open as they find themselves in a catch-22. They won’t survive if they don’t open ― but if they do, they have to just hope they aren’t visited by an infected patient which puts them on the map. 

The government has done an amazing and internationally touted job with its test-and-trace program to keep residents informed but it has some pitfalls, as businesses in Itaewon have learned. 

“While I appreciate and applaud the efforts made by the Korean government to mitigate and curtail the spread of COVID-19 in the country,” explained Juweon Kim, cofounder and CEO of Vatos Urban Tacos in Itaewon, “I think what we have experienced in Itaewon is one of the negative consequences of the very public track-and-trace methods being employed by the government. Itaewon served as the low-hanging fruit for the 24-hour news cycle during a period when the news cycle was slowing down for COVID-19-related stories.”  (……..)

Residents around Korea need to be vigilant and take precautions as the pandemic continues to spread, but according to Juweon there has been “a mischaracterization by the media to make Itaewon sound like it’s the epicenter of the spread and it’s where there’s a high concentration of COVID-19 infections. This false narrative must change.” 

Despite the government-released data that showed patient zero came from Yongin and the majority of the infected do not live or work in Itaewon, the media quickly labeled the uptick the “Itaewon cluster” and turned the once-popular district into a ghost town. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Besides some schools in the Seoul area the vast majority of South Korea’s schools are now open:

The final batch of students returned to school Monday, completing a three-week phased reopening of schools as Korea steps into the post-Covid-19 age.  
   
Yet even as fifth, sixth and seventh graders finally began their school year after a three-month delay, anxiety loomed in many parts of the Seoul metropolitan area, where several clusters of coronavirus infections have popped up lately.  
   
The Ministry of Education announced that 517 schools remained closed Monday, almost all in Seoul, Incheon or Gyeonggi, due to fear of infections. The closed schools account for about 2.5 percent of 20,902 nationwide schools. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on the coronavirus in South Korea:

South Korea reported 57 additional cases of the new coronavirus Sunday, marking the second consecutive day the number was above 50, raising concerns over new cluster infections in the densely populated greater Seoul area ahead of the final phase of school reopening. 

The new infections raised the country’s total caseload to 11,776, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said. This is the highest number of daily infections since the 58 reported May 29.

The recent spike is mainly due to growth in new clusters at table tennis clubs and health product retailer Richway specialized in door-to-door sales for mostly elderly consumers, both based in Seoul, while group infections from nightclubs, a distribution center and religious gatherings continue to pose problems.

Yonhap

These cluster infections are going to continue to happen, but what you never hear about is how is it effecting hospital capacity? The virus is going to continue to spread, the key is slowing its spread to a level that the hospitals can keep up with treating the critically ill. It appears that South Korea is having no issues currently treating the critically ill.