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Health workers disinfect National Assembly facilities on Feb. 24. (Kim Gyoung-ho, senior staff writer)

Amid the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus, even constitutional bodies such as the National Assembly are halting their operations. Since South Korea has elevated its infectious disease alert level to the highest level of “red,” both the public and private sectors have been witnessing an unprecedented series of closures. Courthouse trials are slated to be delayed, and daycares in Seoul are taking two weeks off, following the delay of the spring semester for kindergartens, elementary, middle, and high schools. Public cultural institutions such as museums are closing their doors as well. The Ministry of Employment and Labor has also advised companies in the private sector to allow their employees to use flex time, including staggered commuting hours, and to go on leave to take care of family members.

On Feb. 24, the National Assembly canceled all events scheduled for the day, including a regular session, a government interpellation session and meetings of standing committees. On Monday, it was reported that a doctor who’d attended a debate at the National Assembly on Feb. 19 had tested positive for the virus, throwing the legislative body into utter chaos. The assembly hall and the lawmakers’ hall, both of which had been visited by the doctor, were shut down to be disinfected from 6 pm on Feb. 24 to 9 am on Feb. 26. United Future Party floor leader Shim Jae-chul and lawmakers Chun Hui-gyeong and Gwak Sang-do, who’d come into contact with the doctor, visited hospitals for testing, as did party leader Hwang Kyo-ahn and a large number of other politicians who’d interacted with those lawmakers.

The courts are another constitutional body that’s being forced to respond to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. In a message posted to the court’s online message board on Monday, Cho Jae-youn, minister of the National Court Administration, recommended that courts go on hiatus, adjusting or delaying hearings in all trials except those that demand urgent action (such as those concerning detentions, injunctions, and stays of execution).

Starting on Tuesday, 24 cultural institutions under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) — including the National Museum of Korea in Seoul and its other branches throughout the country, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, and the National Library of Korea — will begin to close in sequence in light of the emergency. It’s unprecedented for museums and other national cultural institutions to shut down because of the spread of an infectious disease; the MCST will announce when they’ll reopen after tracking the spread of the virus.

In a related development, the city of Seoul has made the extreme decision to temporarily close all 5,705 daycare centers within its city limits for two weeks, from Feb. 25 to Mar. 9. The decision also has the effect of closing 495 centers that provide care for elementary-age children.

Even so, Seoul plans to provide the usual level of care for families in which both parents are working. “In regard to children who have to be looked after at daycare centers because both parents are working, daycare workers will be providing safe care at locations that have been adequately disinfected,” said Yun Hui-cheon, head of women’s policy for the city. A number of local governments elsewhere in the country, including Ulsan and Jeju Island, have also decided to close daycares for six days, starting on Feb. 24 or 25.

With so many schools, kindergartens, and daycare centers closing their doors, South Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) is urging companies in the private sector to allow employees to take full advantage of flex time and to take leave to look after family members. The goal is to stagger the times when employees are commuting between work and home, in a bid to reduce the likelihood of COVID-19 being transmitted through close contact on public transit. MOEL is asking not only branch offices and related agencies but also private companies around the country to take a flexible approach to working hours by staggering commuting times, lunch times, and breaks and allowing their employees to telecommute. The city of Seoul has already decided to implement staggered commuting hours for all employees at city hall, public servants in its 25 districts, and employees at city-funded organizations.

n employee at the National Assembly, which is to be closed until Feb. 26 amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, sends away visitors on Feb. 24. (photo pool)

As of Feb. 25, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Korea has shot up to 893. Though there’s been a triple-digit increase in cases over each of the past four days, Monday saw the biggest jump of all. The public health authorities are planning to test not only the 9,000 members of the Shincheonji church in Daegu, which is the epicenter of the transmission cluster in that city, but also all 28,000 Daegu residents who are exhibiting cold-like symptoms.

According to figures provided by South Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), 231 new cases were confirmed on Feb. 24, and 60 more cases were confirmed on the morning of Feb. 25. There’s been a steady surge since the 100 new cases on Feb. 21, with 229 confirmed on Feb. 22 and 169 more on Feb. 23. Of all of South Korea’s 893 cases, 731 have occurred in Daegu (500) and North Gyeongsang Province (231). This regional concentration reflects the fact that, as of 9 am on Monday, 81.9% of the total infections were linked to the Shincheonji church in Daegu and the Daenam Hospital in Cheongdo, a city in North Gyeongsang Province, south of Daegu. As of Feb. 25, 35,823 people are being tested for the disease, while 22 recovered patients have been discharged from hospitals.

As a result, the government believes that, rather than tracking the individual routes of transmission for confirmed cases of COVID-19, the best way to prevent the further spread of the disease is by taking a dragnet approach to testing so as to identify patients at an early stage. Over the next two weeks, the government will be focusing its testing on the part of Daegu where the Shincheonji church is located, hoping to halt the spread of the disease within a month.

By Jang Na-rye, Choi Woo-ri, Noh Hyung-seok, Lee Jeong-gyu, and Seon Dam-eun, staff reporters

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