South Korea has been praised globally for its efforts to contain coronavirus. At this time, Vice Director of Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kwon Jun-wook said that there was no return to the world before COVID-19 and social distancing has to be the new reality.
Among South Korea's new infections, almost 55 percent in the past two weeks were imported cases and 20 percent were foreign arrivals - non-essential travellers. Kwon told that 81 percent of all the local infections were linked to communal activities, reported Korea Herald. As of now, there are only four deaths per one million of the population in the country, and the US is lagging in this regard too. Korea's tests per million has also been on top, globally.
Measures
Expanding the screening efforts that began on April 1, the country government told all arriving passengers to self-isolate for two weeks, while short-term visitors have to pay and stay with a fee of almost $826 for the state arranged to stay. All this with only 3,026 active coronavirus cases as of Saturday.
Complying with the quarantine, for those who violate measures would be tracked by the e-wristbands. All these surveillance measures for 14 days were announced in a meet with Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun as chair on Saturday.
Kwon again warned about rising cases which are untraceable to its source. This second phase of mitigations measures will end on April 19. Previously other measures such as one-metre distancing, wearing face masks and gloves to not engage in unnecessary conversations, were issued.
No returning to the world as we knew
"I will say this as many times as necessary until the message gets through: There is no returning to world as we knew it before COVID-19. We are far past that point. Physical distancing has to be our reality now," he added
There are presently 10,512 confirmed cases recorded on coronavirus in South Korea, with 7,368 already recovered and 214 dead as of Sunday noon. The country tested about 514,621 for the virus. He said that the race for vaccines was just on until it is ready, these steps were necessary.
