The aggravating hospital bed shortage in Daegu has emerged as the most pressing issue in Korea’s desperate efforts to contain the virus, as over 1,600 patients in the virus-hit city remained at home awaiting hospitalization. At least two have died in the process. Prime Minister Chung Se-kyun said Sunday that the Korea Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Ministry of Health and Welfare and Ministry of the Interior and Safety are devising a set of measures to attack the matter

Social Affairs March 1, 2020

Local provinces and cities are questioning the claims of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, which is linked to most cases of the novel coronavirus, claiming that the secretive church has undermined their efforts to track the virus by hiding followers and continuing to run its facilities. Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don said Saturday the city would take legal action if Shincheonji is found to have falsified the follower list that it provided to the government. Three Busan residents who tested positive

Social Affairs Feb. 29, 2020

Over 70 countries are imposing entry restrictions or special quarantine measures on South Korean visitors amid a sharp surge in the number of patients infected with the novel coronavirus here, Seoul officials said. On Saturday, a Vietnam-bound Korean flight carrying 40 passengers returned to the country after the Vietnamese government denied it permission to landing in the capital city of Hanoi. The Vietnamese government notified Korean carriers on 8:30 a.m. Saturday to use Van Don Intern

Social Affairs Feb. 29, 2020

Black tile roofs of traditional Korean houses are tightly gathered at Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul, offering a glimpse of how life must have been during the country’s last and longest-lived Joseon Dynasty. Located between Gyeongbok Palace and Changdeok Palace, Bukchon was the neighborhood of choice for yangban, upper-class aristocrats of the imperial dynasty. Today’s Bukchon is divided into two areas, displaying a co-existence of both modern and traditional architecture. On

Culture Feb. 28, 2020

Local provinces and cities on Thursday scrambled to check followers of a secretive religious sect residing in their jurisdictions for potential COVID-19 infection. From Seoul to Jeju Island, public servants were mobilized to contact all those on the membership list of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, earlier provided by the church, to ask whether they have shown any symptoms. According to the sect’s Daegu branch, 8 in 10 followers who underwent the virus test have been confirmed to b

Social Affairs Feb. 27, 2020

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun pledged Wednesday to mobilize all available resources for intensive disinfection measures to stabilize the coronavirus-hit Daegu within four weeks. “The government will mobilize all resources and means in order not to lose the prime timing (to contain the virus),” Chung said while presiding over a meeting of the government anti-disaster headquarters for the first time in the city. From Tuesday, Chung has been staying in the southeastern city of Da

Social Affairs Feb. 26, 2020

Gyeonggi Provincial authorities on Tuesday seized computers from an annex building of the Christian sect confirmed as a transmission cluster for a novel coronavirus, as part of efforts to track the potential spread of the disease and contain it. A list of 42,000 followers of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus was secured during a digital forensics investigation, according to the provincial government. The move came after a 33-year-old resident of Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, tested positive for

Social Affairs Feb. 25, 2020

Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans have called for the forcible dissolution of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, a shadowy Christian sect that has been identified as a hotbed of new coronavirus infections. Over 552,000 people have signed an online petition to that effect since Saturday, when it was filed on the website of the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae. Any petition that gets more than 200,000 signatures within a month requires an offic

Social Affairs Feb. 24, 2020

A conservative pastor vowed to continue his fight against President Moon Jae-in, even as massive rallies he had spearheaded over the weekend sparked public backlash amid mounting fears of the potential spread of a novel coronavirus. The Rev. Jun Kwang-hoon, chief of the Christian Council of Korea, appeared at the Seoul Central District Court on Monday to attend a hearing over the legality of detaining him over allegations of violating election law by asking participants in a street rally to

Social Affairs Feb. 24, 2020

South Korea has stepped up measures to detect and contain the new coronavirus, as the number of COVID-19 patients has grown rapidly across the nation. The country reported 100 additional cases Friday, with the total standing at 204 as of 4 p.m. Daegu and the nearby North Gyeongsang Province took up the lion’s share of the new cases. Only a handful of areas, including Busan, Gangwon Province and Ulsan, remained virus-free. Since a 61-year-old woman was confirmed as the 31st patien

Social Affairs Feb. 21, 2020

South Korea’s fight against the coronavirus outbreak has entered a new phase of local transmission, with Daegu becoming a hot bed of COVID-19 infections with nearly 40 new cases reported in the southern city in just two days. As of 6 p.m. Thursday, the total number of infected people here stood at 104, with 70 of them in Daegu and nearby North Gyeongsang Province. Most of the cases have been traced to a church in the city that a 61-year-old woman, confirmed as the country’s 31st

Social Affairs Feb. 20, 2020

The government said Wednesday that it plans to carry out a full-scale investigation into a church in the southern city of Daegu, which has emerged as the largest cluster of the new coronavirus disease with 14 cases. South Korea reported 20 new cases of COVID-19 the same day, increasing the total to 51. According to the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of the new cases, 18 were in Daegu, the third-largest city in the country, and nearby North Gyeongsang Province. Fifteen a

Social Affairs Feb. 19, 2020

North Korean defectors living here are pushing to create a political party that protects their rights and interests. On Tuesday, some 200 defectors launched a preparatory committee for establishment of the tentatively named Inter-Korean Reunification Party during a conference of party promoters at the Federation of Korean Industries building. “We are trying to create a political party that can represent the equivalence and difference between South and North Korean people,” the

Politics Feb. 18, 2020

After three years of disarray, conservatives managed to forge a united front to counter the main liberal force of the ruling party, boosting their chances in the upcoming general elections. The question, however, remains. Will the newly formed Party for Future Integration be able to recruit new talent and extend its support base beyond diehard conservative voters? The new bloc was born Monday through the merger of the largest opposition Liberty Korea Party, the New Conservative Party and

Politics Feb. 18, 2020

The heaviest snow so far this winter hit most parts of South Korea on Monday, disrupting road traffic and causing flight cancellations. The Korea Meteorological Administration, or KMA, issued a heavy snow alert or warnings for some parts of Gyeonggi Province and the Chungcheong and Jeolla provinces as well as Jeju Island and Ulleungdo. Snowfall hit record levels in many areas as this winter season saw barely any snow until now. Dokdo and Ulleungdo had the most snow in the country with 34.8

Social Affairs Feb. 17, 2020