Seoul region sees surge in virus cases
Health officials unable to keep up with tracing
SEOUL, South Korea — Just weeks ago, South Korea was celebrating its hard-won gains against the coronavirus, easing social distancing, reopening schools and promoting a tech-driven anti-virus campaign President Moon Jae-in has called “K-quarantine.”
But a resurgence of infections in the Seoul region where half of South Korea’s 51 million people live is threatening the country’s success story and prompting health authorities to warn that action must be taken now to stop a second wave.
South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday reported 45 new cases, a daily rise that has been fairly consistent since late May. Most have been in the Seoul metropolitan area, where health authorities have struggled to trace transmissions.
“Considering the quick transmission of COVID-19, there’s limits to what we can do with contact tracing alone to slow the spread,” said Yoon Taeho, a Health Ministry official, during a virus briefing Thursday, where he repeated a plea for residents in the capital area to stay at home.
Despite the concerns over the spike in infections, government officials have resisted calls to reimpose stronger social distancing guidelines after they were relaxed in April, citing concerns over hurting a fragile economy.
Their stance seems in contrast with the urgency conveyed by health experts, including KCDC director Jung Eun-kyeong, who has warned that the country could be sleepwalking into another huge COVID-19 crisis but this time in its most populous region.
She has said health workers are struggling more and more to track transmissions that are spreading quickly and unpredictably as people increase their activities and practice less social distancing.
Jung’s concerns were echoed by Kwon Jun-wook, director of the National Institute of Health, who in a separate briefing Thursday acknowledged that health authorities were only managing to “chase transmissions after belatedly discovering them.”
In other developments:
The European Union on Thursday urged all its member countries to start lifting travel restrictions on their common borders from next week, saying that the closures they introduced to tackle the coronavirus do little to limit its spread.
One of Thailand’s major tourist attractions is barring entry to foreigners out of fear that they could spread the coronavirus. Signs seen Thursday at the main gate of Wat Pho, the Buddhist temple adjacent to the Grand Palace in Bangkok, said in English: “Open for Thai only,” “ONLY THAI PEOPLE,” and “NOW NOT OPEN FOR FOREIGNERS.”
Oscar-winning Mexican directors Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu joined actress Salma Hayek to set up a fund to help support Mexican movie industry workers out of work because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Mexican Academy of Cinema Arts and Sciences announced the fund Thursday. González Iñárritu spoke via a video call.