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People line up to get tested at a screening clinic in Seoul’s Yongsan District on May 11. (Kim Hye-yun, staff photographer)

Amid concerns that an outbreak of COVID-19 from Itaewon nightclubs will continue to spread as second-generation infections are confirmed, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on May 11 that it would implement an anonymous testing system, in which people will only have to provide their telephone number before being tested. Based on the prediction that the transmission cluster will peak on May 13, the public health authorities are focusing on tracking down “hidden patients” to stop the disease from spreading further.

As of the morning of May 12, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) has identified a total of 101 patients in connection with the Itaewon club outbreak. At least 63 of those cases are people who had visited the clubs themselves, while at least 23 are family members, friends, and colleagues who represented a second wave of infections.

As of May 11, 2,456 of the some 5,517 people who visited the clubs in question have been tested for COVID-19. By the end of the day on Monday, 35 new cases had been reported and 22 people had been released from quarantine. This marked the first time in 60 days, since Mar. 12, that the daily tally of new cases exceeded the number of recoveries.

Even when the daily figures were being released, the number of second-generation cases continued to climb. After the 17th patient in Seoul’s Jungnang District was diagnosed with COVID-19 on May 10, five colleagues tested positive the following day. Other cases have occurred in the colleagues’ respective residences of Seoul’s Gangdong District and Dongjak District and Yongin and Suwon, two cities in Gyeonggi Province. The patient in Suwon is an employee in the Jangan District Office, causing the office’s first floor to be shut down. In Incheon, a woman in her 80s tested positive after coming into contact with her grandson, who visited one of the Itaewon clubs.

On Monday, three more people tested positive at a quarantine facility at the Army Cadet Military School in Goesan County, North Chungcheong Province, bringing the total of COVID-19 patients there to four. After a soldier in the South Korean Army’s cyber operations command tested positive on May 7 following a visit to an Itaewon club, 71 people who’d come into contact with the soldier were interned at the quarantine facility, with the possibility that more will test positive.

KCDC Director Jung Eun-kyeong addressed the growing number of cases during the daily briefing. “The nightlife establishments in Itaewon were mostly open between May 2 and 6, which is when many of the patients were exposed to the disease. Given COVID-19’s average incubation period, we assume there will be a lot of cases between May 7 and 13. The people who visited those clubs need to quickly get tested today or tomorrow,” she said.

Seoul, which has seen the most cases in this outbreak (51 as of noon on Monday), announced that it will be adopting an anonymous testing system to reassure those who are reluctant to get tested out of fear of being stigmatized. The city estimates that some 3,100 people who visited the clubs, or more than half of the total, have neither gotten in touch with the authorities nor been tested.

“The next few days are a make-or-break period. Those who so desire will be assigned a number at the community health center and will only have to provide their address and phone number, leaving the name blank. Testing will be conducted free of charge,” Seoul mayor Park Won-soon said during the morning briefing. Under this plan, people can be tested in the format “Yongsan 1,” without providing their name, and will only have to provide the information necessary for contacting them after the test results come back.

On Monday morning, Yongsan District, Yongsan Police Station, and the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency carried out technical deliberations about acquiring a list of mobile phone users who connected to base stations in the area of Itaewon.

After Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, and Incheon issued what amounts to a shutdown order for nightclubs and discos in order to prevent the disease from spreading, other local governments are following suit. Daegu, North Gyeongsang Province, and South Gyeongsang Province banned gatherings at those facilities through May 24. Busan is also mulling a similar ban at major clubs in the city.

After slapping an open-ended ban on gatherings at nightlife establishments the previous day, Seoul moved on Monday to order club-like bars that play dance music and encourage dancing and mingling to abide by the seven major disease control guidelines. Those that fail to do so will face the same ban on gatherings as regular nightclubs, the city warned.

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

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