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All branches of Woori Bank have installed transparent barriers between bankers and customers. (Yonhap News)

While the intense social distancing measures implemented to stop the spread of COVID-19 are set to expire on Apr. 5, the South Korean government believes that immediately easing those measures would present considerable risks. That has led officials to discuss transitioning to a system of quarantine measures that are more in line with daily routines without greatly weakening the intensity of the social distancing measures currently in place. The government is planning to announce its future plans for disease control measures before the weekend.

“Since students won’t be able to attend school in person for the time being, we’re discussing how long the intense social distancing measures should be left in place. We can’t postpone a return to normal routines indefinitely, and we’re fully aware about the level of fatigue among the public. But the disease is spreading at an unprecedented speed around the world, and we’re continuing to see cases imported from overseas and clusters of infection at home,” South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on Apr. 2. Chung also emphasized that “Easing social distancing carries the risk of allowing the disease to spread once again.”

As of Apr. 3, South Korea’s total number of COVID-19 cases stands at 10,062. “If possible, we’d like to explain our plans for handling social distancing before the weekend,” said Kim Gang-lip, first general coordinator of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, in the daily briefing on Thursday.

Even if the public health authorities transition to a more routine form of quarantine system, they’re likely to maintain a high level of social distancing. “If we practice a very high degree of social distancing for two weeks, we can reduce the total incidence [of COVID-19 transmission] by nearly 88%. Even if quarantine measures are adapted to our daily routines, insisting on tough social distancing should be seen as a subset of that,” said Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) Deputy Director Kwon Jun-wook during the daily briefing on Thursday.

“Routine quarantine measures could be not only intense social distancing but also normal social distancing, which means reducing density in our communities by maintaining a distance of two meters from other people, having people with fever or other suspicious symptoms refrain from leaving the house, and checking people for fever before they enter a crowded place,” Kwon explained.

Earlier, the government had appealed to the public to take part in a more intense round of social distancing during the two weeks from Mar. 22 to Apr. 5. Its intention was to subsequently transition to a quarantine system that would maintain disease control measures while allowing people to go about their daily routines and economic activities. But since a hundred or so new cases are still reported each day, the government has been debating whether to extend the period of intense social distancing period.

The spring semester at schools was supposed to begin on Apr. 6, but that has been postponed once again, and students will now be starting their classes online according to a predetermined sequence based on their grade. Under these circumstances, many experts have cautioned that the social distancing guidelines shouldn’t be relaxed for now. The educational authorities think that students could begin returning to schools at the end of April.

In relation to this, the results of a study analyzing the effectiveness of delaying the start of the semester as a social distancing measure were released on Thursday. A quantitative analysis by Jung Eun-ok, a math professor at Konkuk University, and Baek Gyeong-ran, a professor of infectious disease at Samsung Medical Center, found that delaying the spring semester had the effect of preventing at least 200 additional COVID-19 cases.

The routine quarantine system would likely include measures to protect people with deficient immune systems, who are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. “We need to continue to take precautions for people whose immunological defenses are very weak, including cancer patients, people who’ve received organ transplants, and pregnant women,” Kwon said.

Regular hand washing and other hygiene measures are also likely to be part of the routine quarantine system. “We’ll be exploring ways to ensure that people have access to a sink or hand sanitizer wherever they go,” Kwon explained.

In addition to this, the public health authorities are developing more detailed guidelines that will apply to various situations and locations, with a focus on potentially crowded indoor environments. At schools, for example, the guidelines would address the question of whether sick children should attend classes and would prescribe monitoring for fever and other symptoms at the entrance to schools, furnishing schools with hand sanitizer, and having students maintain a certain distance from each other the cafeterias.

Most importantly, the public health authorities are emphasizing that people should avoid close contact — defined as spending more than 15 minutes within 2 meters of another person — in their daily lives. That means that people should stay at least three steps away from others, maintaining a gap greater than the distance between their hands, when their arms are stretched out.

“When it’s necessary for a lot of people to come together, we ask that [the organizers] find a large space in which people can maintain the proper distance or have people meet at different times. We recommend that people refrain from shaking hands or embracing,” Kim Gang-lip said on Thursday.

By Park Jun-yong, Noh Ji-won, and Park Da-hae, staff reporters

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