Be humble before COVID-19

Time to review our fight against pandemic

The latest infections at “contact-free” business facilities illustrate that the COVID-19 pandemic will leave no aspect of our lives untouched. It's a dampening realization since the public was just getting over the Itaewon night club infections. But it can serve as a timely juncture to review and readjust the battle against the unknown.

 

  
Responsible for staving off a buying frenzy in the initial days of the coronavirus outbreak, leading e-commerce companies such as Coupang and Market Kurly are seeing infections at their facilities grow. The authorities announced Friday that new daily infections had reached 58. This is the second consecutive day of new infections surpassing 50 cases daily, the standard Korea set to relax social distancing to “everyday life quarantine.” 

In particular, the authorities tallied more than 100 infections linked to Coupang since the first case was reported six days ago. The infections are broadly spread out among business outlets, cram institutes and schools, with a majority linked to the early May outbreaks at Itaewon nightclubs.

 

The health authorities have rightly suspended operation of the Seoul Metropolitan area's public facilities through June 14, and have started an across-the-board inspection of logistics centers associated with online retailers. The government also capped the number of students in different grades attending schools in the metropolitan area, but said it will proceed with a third opening of schools on June 3. However, it has stopped short of fully returning to strict social distancing, a cautious step that hopefully will prove that carrying out “pockets” of this can be effective.

If the worst comes to worst, we must go back to social distancing. But in the meanwhile, we can put more effort into striking a balance between life versus virus vigilance, and business versus virus vigilance. 

When it shifted to everyday life quarantine, the government issued guidelines covering 31 aspects of work, everyday life and leisure. Yet applying them on site eluded us because so much remains unknown about COVID-19. Calls are growing for the authorities ― whose stellar dedicated work has made South Korea a model of quarantine ― to ensure to a certain extent that the guidelines are kept.

It's hard to deny that Korea has been lax since the May 6 easing of social distancing. At this time, we would do well to ask ourselves if there was an over-reliance on our ability to test and wear masks.

COVID-19 seems poised to live with us for a long time. We need to exercise  humility before this unprecedented virus, like it or not.