2020.02.29

Today we have a first-hand account from a 31-year-old man, living in Busan, who provides an insight into the Korean situation regarding coronavirus:

“This is really a big issue. Everyone’s staying inside, no-one’s going anywhere or doing anything. Seomyeon [city centre] is empty, Dongnae [restaurant/bar area] is empty. Even Megamart [large supermarket chain] is empty. I have family members who run a restaurant and they’re really suffering – hardly any customers and staff don’t want to work. People use the word “dangerous” to describe public areas. Work is very quiet – I work in a gym, and no-one wants to come and train and be around other people. All the schools have taken a week off. Stock levels in shops are quite low, particularly anything which will keep for a long time. We’ve been trying to make sure we have plenty of rice, cup ramyeon noodles and other things which will keep for a long time.”

Analysis: Koreans take this type of public health crisis extremely seriously; there’s a kind of shared cultural awareness about pandemics which can completely dominate the social discourse. I arrived in Korea in 2008 to huge, nation-wide protests against US beef imports due to the possibility of BSE/CJD infection. Given the scale and passion of the protests I assumed that a number of people had passed away; I was surprised to learn that Koreans had reacted so strongly just to the possibility that they had been exposed to BSE/CJD.