|
 Malls, restaurants and streets in Daegu, the country's fourth
largest city with a population of 2.5 million, were largely empty in
scenes that residents and social media users likened to a disaster
movie.
"It's like someone dropped a bomb in the middle of the city. It
looks like a zombie apocalypse," Kim Geun-woo, a 28-year-old
resident told Reuters by telephone.
"Even Dongseong-ro Street – the most crowded centre of the city – is
empty," he said, adding that he had tried to buy surgical masks but
shops were sold out.
Korea's Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported
53 new cases of the virus on Thursday, following 20 a day earlier,
taking the total across the country to 104.
Of that national tally, 70 patients are from Daegu or nearby and the
majority have been traced to an infected 61-year-old woman known as
"Patient 31" who attended a church, a scenario that KCDC described
as a "super-spreading event".
South Korea also reported the first death of a coronavirus patient,
though the man's exact cause of death was being investigated.
The man was among 13 people at a hospital near Daegu who tested
positive for the virus. Health officials said they were
investigating whether there were links between the outbreak at the
church and the hospital.
The hospital would be temporarily shut down and about 600 staff and
patients would be tested for the virus, Yonhap news agency reported,
citing officials.
Several major department stores, including at least one in Seoul,
were closed after reports that Patient 31 had visited in recent
weeks, Yonhap reported.
CITY ON EDGE
Daegu Mayor Kwon Young-jin told residents to stay indoors as he
warned of likely further cases.
"We are in an unprecedented crisis," he said at a briefing in the
city, about 240 km (150 miles) southwest of the capital Seoul.
Kwon cautioned that at least 90 more of the about 1,000 other people
who attended services at the Temple of the Tabernacle of the
Testimony were also showing symptoms.
"We plan to test all believers of that church and have asked them to
stay at home isolated from their families," Kwon said.
[to top of second column] |
South Korea's vice health minister Kim Kang-lip said at a separate
briefing in the administrative city of Sejong that the situation was
"very grave".
The cases previously reported in South Korea had mostly involved
people who had travelled individually to China or come into contact
with somebody who had, but it is unclear how Patient 31 contracted
the virus.
Daegu authorities ordered the shutdown of all kindergartens, while
all schools will postpone the beginning of the spring semester
scheduled for early March by one week in an unprecedented move,
Yonhap said.
The Defence Ministry banned troops stationed in Daegu from leaving
their barracks and receiving guests, while a soldier who had
recently visited his home in Daegu tested positive for the virus.
The U.S. military imposed similar restrictions on its army base in
the city, which houses thousands of troops, family members and
civilian employees, curbing travel and closing schools and
child-care centres.
CHURCH CLOSED
Media footage showed the few people on Daegu's usually bustling
downtown streets wore face masks and kept far apart.
Topics such as "Daegu lockdown" and "Daegu church" were among the
top searches on major South Korean portal Naver as debate heated up
online about whether the city should be sealed off from the rest of
the country. A KCDC official told Reuters the government was not
considering that measure.
The church at the centre of the outbreak is a branch of the
Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a religious movement founded in 1984 by
South Korean Lee Man-hee who has about 500,000 followers.
Some commentators on social media blamed the custom of churchgoers
sitting on the floor close to each other during services as
increasing the risk of spreading the virus.
Shincheonji said on Wednesday it had closed its Daegu church and
instructed that services elsewhere be held online or individually at
home.
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Sangmi Cha; Editing by Jane Wardell
and Josh Smith)
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
