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The Blue House (Hankyoreh photo archives)

The Blue House has reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 since the infectious disease reached South Korea last year.

“One administrator at the Blue House has tested positive with COVID-19. The administrator had been working from home after their spouse came down with a fever. They were tested for COVID-19 and were notified today that the results were positive,” Blue House spokesperson Park Kyung-mi said in a statement to the press on Wednesday.

This is the first COVID-19 case to have occurred inside the Blue House. There have been cases in the 101 Security Team, a squad from the Seoul Metropolitan Police that handles Blue House security, but the squad is technically part of the police, not the Blue House.

“There was no contact between the president [and the administrator who tested positive],” a Blue House official said.

The Blue House said the administrator had already received a COVID-19 vaccine.

The Blue House explained that it had closed off and sanitized the infected administrator’s workspace and that it was having the other employees who worked there get tested for COVID-19 as well.

The Chunchugwan building at the Blue House complex, which houses the press room and briefing room, has been closed since Monday when the government imposed Level 4 social distancing restrictions in the greater Seoul area.

On Wednesday, Park, the Blue House spokesperson, conveyed President Moon Jae-in’s gratitude to the ruling and opposition parties for agreeing not to ask Jeong Eun-kyeong, commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), to attend a plenary session of the National Assembly’s Special Committee on Budget and Accounts in light of the current COVID-19 situation.

“While it’s important for the KDCA commissioner to appear before the National Assembly and field questions from National Assembly members, who represent the public, it’s also very important for her to focus on disease control and vaccination given the concrete and meaningful role that she plays in the serious wave of COVID-19 that we’re currently undergoing,” Moon said in a morning meeting with his aides.

The National Assembly’s Special Committee on Budget and Accounts decided to have Na Sung-woong, deputy director of the KCDA, attend the plenary session from Wednesday to Thursday instead of Jeong Eun-kyeong.

By Lee Wan, staff reporter

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