The South Korean government said Monday it would soon put forward a timetable to reopen schools, as the rate of new coronavirus infections stabilizes.   　 Currently, all students are taking online classes at home.   　 “We cannot compromise children’s safety for anything, but we cannot confine students to their homes until the end of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said Monday, directing the Education Ministry to study a road map for schools re

Social Affairs April 27, 2020

Those who break compulsory home quarantine rules will be asked to wear electronic wristbands starting Monday, authorities said Friday, as part of efforts to curb violations. Due to privacy concerns, wearing it will not be mandatory, raising questions over the effectiveness of the policy. Violators who do not agree to wearing the location-tracking wristbands will be required to stay at state facilities during quarantine, instead of at their homes, the authorities said. They must also pay fo

Social Affairs April 24, 2020

South Korea’s government on Friday released a detailed draft of “routine distancing” guidelines that the public should follow to fight the novel coronavirus, saying the pandemic could last as long as two years and there is no going back to pre-coronavirus normalcy. As Korea has seen a slowdown in new cases following social distancing campaign that began on March 22 across the country, the government is moving to transition to “routine distancing,” which will allo

Social Affairs April 24, 2020

More than half of all particulate pollution in Seoul in 2018 resulted from domestic causes such as heating and vehicles, while China was responsible for 38 percent, a report showed Thursday. 　 Some 58 percent of PM 2.5 emissions -- ultrafine airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter and harmful to the human body -- originated within South Korea, up from 45 percent in 2016, according to a study released by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. 　 Seoul contributed 26 percent of t

Social Affairs April 23, 2020

Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don stepped down from his post Thursday, admitting to “unnecessary physical contact” with a female subordinate. 　 “I realized the contact that occured during a short meeting that lasted five minutes could be taken as sexual harassment,” Oh said in a press briefing, adding that what he had done -- however light or heavy -- could not be forgiven. 　 “As a responsible public servant, I apologize to victims and will spend the rest of my life repenti

Politics April 23, 2020

Faced with the novel coronavirus epidemic, South Korea’s schools began offering online classes this month in a step the education minister called a “new road we have never walked.” Distance learning, however, poses an unprecedented burden to parents and educators, with the quality of education for each student appearing to be closely linked to the level of preparedness of the schools, teachers and parents -- from teachers’ digital literacy to parents’ availability

Social Affairs April 22, 2020

A Vietnamese woman filed a lawsuit against the Korean government on Tuesday over a massacre of civilians allegedly committed by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War, in the first of its kind filed some five decades after the atrocity. The plaintiff is Nguyen Thi Thanh, 60, who lost family members at the hands of Korean troops in Phong Nhi in Quang Nam province in February 1968. She seeks 30,000,100 won ($24,400) in compensation and an apology from the Korean government. According

Social Affairs April 21, 2020

Only hundreds of meters away from the palace Gyeongbokgung in central Seoul, time travel into Korea’s history can begin in a temple enshrining Tangun, who founded the first kingdom of Korea in 2,333 BC. According to Korean tradition, Tangun was the legendary founder of Gojoseon, or old Joseon, the first recorded state in Korean history. The state occupied the northern part of the Korean Peninsula and parts of northeast China. In the shrine, a portrait and statue of Tangun have been pla

Social Affairs April 18, 2020

The South Korean government is mulling over whether to extend its social distancing campaign to fight COVID-19, amid concerns over community spread following Wednesday’s parliamentary elections and the Easter weekend. The campaign was scheduled to end Sunday. Despite the country’s tally of new cases of the novel coronavirus hovering around 20 for the fifth straight day, health authorities are on alert over a possible spike in new infections due to people’s increased movements

Social Affairs April 17, 2020

A total of 163 patients previously declared cured of COVID-19 have tested positive again in South Korea as of Friday, up 22 from a day earlier, giving the government a fresh headache in its fight against the virus. The recurring cases account for 2.1 percent of the 7,829 people released from quarantine after recovering. Studies are underway to find out why, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  It took 13.5 days on average for these patients to test positive

Social Affairs April 17, 2020

Six out of 10 citizens in Seoul said it was necessary to extend rigorous social distancing, a survey showed Friday, as the nationwide measure against the spread of COVID-19 is scheduled to end on Sunday.  According to the survey for Seoul Metropolitan Government by Global Research, which was conducted from April 10-12 on 1,000 people living in Seoul, 63.6 percent of the respondents said it was too soon for the country to transition to “routine safety measures” from Sunday, whi

Social Affairs April 17, 2020

South Korea’s Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun on Friday warned against loosened social distancing amid the COVID-19 outbreak, calling the current situation “the calm before the storm.” “The spread of COVID-19 infection has clearly slowed in April. But taking a close look, it feels like the calm before the storm,” Chung said at a daily meeting on the country’s disaster response. Korea reported 22 new cases on Friday, bringing the total number of infections

Social Affairs April 17, 2020

South Korea reported 22 new cases of the novel coronavirus Friday, bringing the total number of infections to 10,635. New cases of COVID-19 in the country, which once had the largest outbreak outside China, hovered around 20 for the fifth straight day. After reaching a peak on Feb. 29 with 909 cases, the country has since managed to massively reduce the number of new infections. The number of daily new infections was below 50 for nine days in a row. Of the new cases, 11 came from overseas,

Social Affairs April 17, 2020

This year’s parliamentary elections in South Korea, held amid the COVID-19 pandemic, solidified the dominance of its two major parties but laid bare the deep-rooted regionalism and saw a record number of female candidates taking constituencies. Although electoral reforms led to the overcrowding of the field, with 35 parties putting forward candidates, the race was between the governing Democratic Party and the main opposition United Future Party, and the former came out with an unpreced

Social Affairs April 16, 2020

　 Parliamentary elections in South Korea, which took place amid a global COVID-19 pandemic, turned out to be a referndum on the Moon Jae-in administration’s response to the virus.  　 The government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak dominated campaign talk, with usually popular issues -- such as the approach toward North Korea, the slowing economy, prosecution and election reforms and corruption scandals -- nearly gone missing. And the marked slowdown in the virus’ sp

Social Affairs April 15, 2020