South Korea imposed restrictions on Friday May 29 on the number of students its schools can accommodate in and around Seoul in the hope of locating new sources of coronavirus contamination.
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Nurseries, primary schools and colleges in the metropolitan area of Seoul, where half the country's population lives, will only be able to accommodate one in three children, and the rest will have to follow distance education.
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South Korea was the second country most affected by the epidemic after its Chinese outbreak in late February, but the government has managed to contain the situation thanks to a very extensive strategy of testing and tracing the contacts of infected persons which caused it earned praise from foreign capitals. The restrictions had been largely lifted earlier this month, and the whole country was on track to return to normal life, until new outbreaks appeared this week in and around the capital, prompting authorities to impose new restrictions. The schools had thus started to reopen gradually.
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South Korea on Thursday recorded its largest outbreak of new cases in almost two months (+79). The number of new infections (+58) was however down on Friday, for a total of 11,402 cases recorded in the country. This increase in contamination is mainly linked to a warehouse of the online trading company Coupang in Bucheon, west of Seoul, to which 96 cases are linked.
"We have asked Coupang employees and their families" not to go to any school, said Vice Minister of Education Park Baeg-beom. Museums, parks and art galleries closed again for two weeks from Friday. And companies are encouraged to reintroduce flexibility at work.
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