South Korea Coronavirus Cases Tick Upward and PM Recommends Social Distancing Despite Media Pointing to Them as Model

While a lot has been said about the job that South Korea has done with testing their citizens amid the Coronavirus outbreak, the reality is that they are still not out of the woods yet. While their numbers are not as bad as other countries, they are still seeing double digit numbers of new cases regularly and on Saturday, reported 147 new cases.

South Korea has now decided to go with a similar model to what has been recommended by President Trump and Dr. Fauci and close its public to close facilities and forgo socializing for 15 days.

SOCIAL DISTANCING! pic.twitter.com/H2jR59wArx

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2020

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said in a televised address that the government strongly recommended religious, sports and entertainment facilities suspend operations, and people avoid socializing and travel for the next 15 days.

If facilities do not conform to rules while operating, the government will order gatherings to disperse.

“In the event of failure to comply with the administrative order, we will actively take all possible measures as stipulated by law, including the shutdown of the facilities and indemnity claims,” Mr Chung said.

Their testing methods are also very extreme. According to one article, “returning home after a workday last week, Kang Min-kyung stared at a jarring notice taped to her front door: “We’d like you to get tested for Coronavirus.”

In early February, the government also obtained mobile phone records, credit card receipts and other private data of everyone who tested positive for the Coronavirus, and used the information to track the spread of the virus, making much of the data available to the public.

An article released in December described how many young people in the country want to escape South Korean “hell.” The survey found that 79.1% of young women and 72.1% of young men want to leave Korea, that 83.1% of young women and 78.4% of young men consider Korea “hell” and that 29.8% of young women and 34.1% of young men consider themselves “losers.”