hankyoreh

A club in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood recently visited by a confirmed COVID-19 patient. (Kim Hye-yun, staff photographer)

More than 80 cases of the novel coronavirus have been linked to nightclubs in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood, with the cases occurring not only in the capital region but popping up in Busan and even on Jeju Island. COVID-19, which was seemingly on the verge of disappearing from South Korea, is once again spreading rapidly around the country.

This underlines the urgency of ramping up disease control measures as soon as new cases occur and doing everything possible to prevent further transmission. The central government said it’s considering the nationwide application of an order issued by Gyeonggi Province for people who visited the clubs in question to refrain from seeing anyone for two weeks.

According to information released by the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and the Seoul Metropolitan Government, a total of 86 cases had been confirmed in connection with the Itaewon clubs as of noon on Monday. The region with the most cases was Seoul, with 51, followed by Gyeonggi Province with 21, Incheon with seven, North Chungcheong Province with 5, Busan with one, and Jeju Island with one.

Local governments in the Seoul region, where the vast majority of these cases have occurred, took stern measures such as issuing what amount to closures for certain types of businesses. Lee Jae-myung, governor of Gyeonggi Province, issued a ban on the operation or visitation of 5,601 establishments in the province, including bars and nightclubs, in an emergency press conference on Sunday afternoon.

“Anyone with a residence, workplace, or other connection with Gyeonggi Province who visited the sauna in Gangnam District or the six clubs in Itaewon, Yongsan District, since Apr. 29 is obliged to be tested for COVID-19, free of charge, at a community health centers or screening clinics in Gyeonggi Province between May 11 and 17,” the governor said, while ordering those people to avoid contact with others until their results came in. The authority for the order derives from the Infectious Disease Prevention Act.

“If the effectiveness of this measures can be guaranteed, it will be very helpful,” said a spokesperson for South Korea’s Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, which is mulling the option of applying the order to the entire country.

On May 9, Seoul mayor Park Won-soon issued the city’s second ban on gatherings at 2,146 nightlife establishments. The previous order had been issued on Apr. 8 after an employee at a club in Gangnam was diagnosed with COVID-19. Incheon has officially recommended that 1,058 nightlife establishments in the city refrain from operating until June 7.

In contrast with the major transmission clusters that have occurred previously, the outbreak at the Itaewon nightclubs has sparked grave concerns about further transmission, given the wide range of people who visited the clubs. Furthermore, 30% of those diagnosed thus far have been asymptomatic, raising the specter of a surge in community-based transmission if “hidden patients” fail to go in for testing.

The disease control authorities are having trouble determining who visited the clubs and with whom they came into contact because some non-Koreans and LGBT people didn’t leave accurate contact information in the clubs’ visitor logs. While Seoul’s Yongsan District is contacting the people recorded in the five clubs’ logs for visitors between Apr. 30 and May 5, the district had only been able to reach 3,535 of 5,517 people on the logs (excluding duplicates) as of the afternoon of May 10.

There are increasing calls for Seoul to explore other ways of blocking the outbreak, such as working with LGBT communities to give club visitors information about getting tested. The public health authorities expanded the scope of contact tracing on Sunday. Also, anyone who visited the Itaewon area between Apr. 29 and May 6 is eligible for COVID-19 testing, regardless of symptoms

Experts argue that the government should temporarily implement an anonymous testing regime to encourage as many club visitors as possible to come forward for testing and thus limit the spread of the disease. There are concerns that many will be reluctant to get tested because they’re afraid about the homophobia they might face if people learn that they were at gay clubs.

“I understand the fear of being the target of social criticism, discrimination, and hatred, and I think that screening clinics shouldn’t be asking people whether they visited the clubs in Itaewon. We need to carry out quick contact tracing in order to measure the extent and severity of the outbreak,” said Eom Joong-sik, a professor of infectious diseases at Gachon University Gil Medical Center.

“One idea is temporarily putting into place an anonymous testing system. We also need to be extra careful about not infringing human rights when we release information about patients’ movements,” said Kim Woo-ju, a professor of infectious disease at Korea University Guro Hospital.

By Suh Hye-mi and Choi Ha-yan, staff reporters

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]