Some 101 people have now tested positive for the coronavirus after a cluster outbreak at clubs in Seoul’s party district of Itaewon.
Containing this latest surge in cases is a huge challenge for South Korea’s “track, trace and test” measures which have so far proved successful.
All club-goers were required to put down their names and contact numbers at the door. It was one of the guidelines for re-opening on 19 April - along with wearing masks and using hand sanitiser.
Some of the clubs at the centre of the investigation were run for and by the LGBT community. And in conservative South Korea, LGBT people face daily discrimination.
"Coming out" can often mean losing your life as you know it - your family, your job. Some of the names and numbers left at the door of the club were false - which is making it difficult for officials to track everyone down.
A Catholic-run newspaper in Seoul was the first to run with the headline that the outbreak came from “gay nightclubs”, a term health officials were deliberately trying to avoid.
Amnesty International has today hit out at some of the media coverage and said that “stirring up hatred and branding a certain group is the biggest obstacle to effective disease prevention".
Now, health officials have said that people being tested do not have to give their name. They also believe that there is more than one person at the source of this infection.
A team of over 8,500 police are tracking down nearly 11,000 people who were in Itaewon on that holiday weekend. They have phone numbers based on network towers and they’ve been checking credit card records.
Texts have been sent in English and Korean urging people to get a test. The Korean Centre for Disease Control has clarified to the BBC that anyone who was in the area at the time, including foreigners, can be tested for free. So far, more than 7,000 people have come forward.
Public health was valued over privacy at the height of this outbreak. In efforts to be transparent, some local governments, including Seoul, were releasing the last names, ages and occupations of those who tested positive in press releases to hundreds of journalists.
But now this country is learning that privacy is a matter of public health, if this outbreak is to be brought under control.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiLmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJiYy5jby51ay9uZXdzL2xpdmUvd29ybGQtNTI2Mjc4MjTSAQA?oc=5
2020-05-12 04:40:09Z
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