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Quarantine workers disinfect a distribution center in Seoul’s Songpa District on May 27. (Yonhap News)

As COVID-19 infection clusters continue to surface in crowded working environments such as call centers and distribution centers, the South Korean government has been responding with after-the-fact solutions. On May 31, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCHQ) announced plans to inspect disease prevention measures at distribution centers nationwide and high-density workplaces, including call centers and IT firms. But as most of the inspections simply involve instructing employers and managers to submit their own findings without measures to force improvements, questions remain over whether the response will provide a preemptive means of augmenting disease prevention.

On May 31, the CDSCHQ announced that an emergency inspection of 23 workplaces including Coupang logistics centers found 135 cases of inadequate disease prevention measures, including the sharing of uniforms. Most of the cases cited involved workers not wearing masks, inadequate distancing among employees, and inadequate disinfection of equipment and facilities. In some cases, workplaces had no dedicated disease management personnel -- or no disease prevention guidelines at all.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) has demanded that the employers quickly rectify violations and is working with individual local governments in inspections of 4,361 distribution facilities nationwide through June 11, including delivery terminals and food warehouses. The Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) instructed workplaces where employees work in close conditions -- including call centers, IT businesses, meat processors, and electronics assembly lines -- to conduct independent disease management reviews and submit their findings to their local employment and labor office. The Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) and specialized private disaster prevention institutions are also being commissioned to examine disease management conditions at 15,000 construction sites and 21,000 manufacturing plants.

Poor working environments are a key link in large-scale COVID-19 transmission. As of noon on May 31, the number of confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses associated with Coupang logistic centers stood at 111, including 75 employees. On May 30, the CDSCHQ announced that its positive diagnosis rate for the centers stood at 2.5-2.95%. That number was an interim calculation after the testing of around 83.5% of employees at centers in the cities of Bucheon and Goyang, Gyeonggi Province; the final rate is expected to be even higher.

Employees at the logistics centers worked closely packed together and shared safety helmets and uniforms. In a previous incident at a call center in Seoul’s Guro District, 94 out of 216 employees on a single building floor (the 11th) were infected with the virus -- a positive diagnosis rate of fully 43.5%. It was a stark illustration of how large an impact crowded working conditions can have on the virus’s transmission.

Yet the South Korean government’s response remains at the level of belated after-the-fact inspections of disease prevention measures. In response to the large-scale cluster that emerged following the first Guro call center infection in early March, the government announced plans for a large-scale inspection of call centers in mid-March, along with instruction and management by dedicated supervisors. But another infection cluster recently emerged with eight workers diagnosed at a KB Life Insurance call center.

Questions can also be raised over the efficacy of the inspections. MOEL explained that it plans to have workplaces develop checklists for disease management guidelines, with spot checks to be conducted only for workplaces that show problems. No means exist to punish workplaces that submit false checklists or fail to implement the demanded improvements.

“There are so many workplaces that labor supervisors can only focus on high-risk ones, while private institutions manage the small-scale workplaces,” explained Park Young-man, director of MOEL’s Industrial Accident Prevention and Compensation Bureau.

Im Sang-hyeok, an occupational and environmental medicine specialist who serves as director of Green Hospital, said, “The government needs to take direct action by quickly establishing preemptive disease prevention measures for blind spots in disease control, including undocumented migrant workers and the salespeople, workers that directly visit people’s houses, and caregivers who have no choice about engaging in face-to-face duties.”

The South Korean government has been emphasizing the importance of workers resting for three to four days if they feel ill -- but many of the recently diagnosed workers did not have the option of taking time off from work. Many of the Coupang logistics center employees were found to have been working as day laborers, on contracts, or through outside companies.

“Rather than simply ‘advising’ that people take time off from work if they are sick as a rule, the government should come up with means of imposing strict punishments on companies and employers that don’t allow people to stay home when they feel ill,” advised Kim Yoon, a professor of healthcare management at the Seoul National University College of Medicine.

By Hwang Ye-rang and Choi Ha-yan, staff reporter

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