Group ‘indoor work’ infection of 20 people at Cheongyang Kimchi factory

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50 tons of kimchi are recovered and disposed of
At a kimchi factory in Cheongyang, Chungnam, 20 people, including employees and families, were collectively infected with Corona 19.

According to Chungnam-do and Cheongyang-gun, on the 3rd, a Nepalese woman in her 20s working at Hanul Nongsan, a kimchi maker in Bibong-myeon, Cheongyang-gun, was confirmed the day before. The woman presented symptoms of a cold on the afternoon of day 1 and was classified as a confirmed case the following day. This is the first confirmed person on the plant and the route of infection has not yet been confirmed.

Later, in the process of performing diagnostic tests on 134 people, including close contacts and factory employees who lived with this woman in the bedroom, an additional 18 employees were confirmed to be infected. In addition, a relative of the confirmed employee also tested positive.

Quarantine authorities are urgently quarantining accommodations used by factories and employees and conducting epidemiological investigations on contacts. Most of the confirmed cases are employees between the ages of 30 and 60 who live in factory accommodation or move to nearby Boryeong, Hongseong and Buyeo. Quarantine authorities believe that the number of confirmed cases has increased rapidly due to the nature of kimchi factories working in confined spaces. In addition, they are concerned about the umpteenth infection, which transmits the virus to relatives and acquaintances and spreads to local communities.
Some are concerned that even among negative testers, the level of the virus is high and additional cases may occur. Cheongyang County Chief Kim Don-gon said: “I quarantined 26 employees, who were close contacts of foreign women who were confirmed for the first time, in the Chilgapsan Recreational Forest, but they were already infected. The quarantine authorities decided to recover and discard the 50 tons of kimchi produced and distributed from the 28th to the 2nd of last month in this factory. There are 10 tons of kimchi left in the factory and 40 tons are already in circulation.

Joon-wook Kwon, deputy director of the Central Defense Countermeasures Headquarters, said: “There have been cases of group infections in the kimchi factory, but it is considered that there is currently no risk of infection through food.”

Cheongyang = Reporter Ji Myung-hoon [email protected]