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SEOUL: South Korean health authorities are investigating a small but growing coronavirus outbreak targeting a handful of Seoul nightclubs, seeking to keep infections under control as the country takes less restrictive social distancing measures.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said on Friday that at least 15 people have confirmed cases of the virus linked to clubs in Itaewon, a neighborhood popular with Koreans and foreigners in the city.
South Korea has reported only a handful of cases in the past few days, most of them involving people arriving from abroad. Nightclub infections, while still limited, are expected to increase and come at a time when the country has eased some restrictions on social distancing.
“These places have all the dangerous conditions we were most concerned about,” KCDC Director Jeong Eun-kyeong said Friday, referring to overcrowding and ventilation problems.
“We believe there is a need to strengthen the management of such facilities and we urge you to refrain from visiting such facilities as much as possible.”
Seoul city officials say they have a list of approximately 1,500 people who have visited the clubs, and more cases have been confirmed in other cities where patients lived or traveled.
Authorities have asked anyone who has visited the clubs over the weekend to isolate themselves for 14 days and to be tested.
The group of infections also sparked controversy over the potential unwanted side effects of South Korean invasive tracking and the wide public disclosure of certain patient information.
When various local media outlets identified nightclubs as “gay clubs,” it generated criticism that disclosures and media coverage could expose lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gay (LGBTQ) people against their will or lead to discrimination.
“Gay” and “Itaewon corona” were among the top trending terms on South Korea’s Naver web search portal after the reports.
Some social media users fear that fear of public disclosure may deter some club attendees from being evaluated, and they compared the group to the country’s largest outbreak, which infected thousands of members of a secret church.
The reports included the age, gender, location and movements of the first person who tested positive after visiting those clubs, as well as the type of job he worked in, according to Solidarity for LGBT Human Rights in Korea, the group of nation’s largest rights. .
“It is not only useless to reveal information about an individual’s movement for prevention efforts, but also a serious violation of human rights that invades the privacy of the individual and brings him to society,” the group said.
Subsequently, some local media modified the headlines, removing references to “gay bars,” but made no official apology.
Homosexuality is not illegal in South Korea, and there is a growing public acceptance of LGBTQ relationships.
However, discrimination remains widespread and some gay people suffer hate crimes, rights advocates say.
To combat the coronavirus outbreak, South Korea has adopted a high-tech approach to contact tracing, which may include access to the patient’s cell phone location data, CCTV images, credit card statements, and other information.
Automatic cell phone alerts are sent to anyone suspected of having been in the same area as the confirmed case, and health authorities often reveal details about the patient’s sex, age, whereabouts, and sometimes their workplace in an effort to track new cases.
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