Coronavirus: South Korea in crisis mode as Daegu cases surge
- Infections have risen six-fold in three days to at least 208, with doomsday cult at centre of ‘super-spreading event’
- New infections include three members of the 600,000-strong military
It also reported a second casualty, a 54-year-old woman who died after being moved from Daegu to Busan for treatment, following the death of a man in his 60s on Thursday.
More than six in 10 patients in South Korea are linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu, a group that mainstream churches describe as a doomsday cult with 200,000 followers in the country.
Coronavirus: at least 204 cases in South Korea as church infections spike
Jun Eun-kyeong, head of the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), said a survey of 4,500 church followers – about half of Shincheonji’s congregation in Daegu – revealed more than 500 were experiencing symptoms of Covid-19, which causes a pneumonia-like illness.
“A month into the (Covid-19 disease) outbreak, we have entered an emergency phase,” Chung said. “Our efforts until now had been focused on blocking the illness from entering the country. But we will now shift the focus on preventing the illness from spreading further in local communities.”
Defence Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo ordered military officials to work closely with health authorities to prevent the virus from spreading inside the military, and take special quarantine steps. Jeong also ordered the military to strictly restrict all enlisted troops from taking holidays and meeting visitors from outside, the defence ministry said.
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Streets in Daegu on Friday were deserted, with people avoiding shopping malls and markets, while the city closed public facilities. The Catholic Church suspended mass for the first time in its history.
In Seoul, commuters donned face masks and gave shops a wide berth. While the city government imposed a ban on mass public rallies, groups of conservatives defiantly vowed to push through with their weekly protests in the city centre against Moon’s leadership.
OUT OF CONTROL
South Korea’s second death and surge in cases, alongside new infections in Iran and Chinese hospitals and prisons, has rekindled concerns about the disease that has infected more than 76,000 people and killed more than 2,200.
Last week, Moon had even expressed confidence that the epidemic would be under control, and called for efforts to turn to revitalising the sluggish economy.
One patient died on Friday in the country’s second casualty, becoming part of the 12 people to have died outside mainland China.
“I know the outbreak of the disease is a devilry committed by Satan in order to stop our church from growing after seeing its fast growth,” Lee wrote in a text message that was published in local news media.
Pastor Shin Hyun-wook, a former Shincheonji follower who quit the group in 2006 and is now an anti-cult campaigner, said: “Shincheonji followers are insensitive to catching virus … They believe people get ill because they lack faith.”
The church, set up in 1984 and known for attempting to recruit followers in the streets or in other churches without revealing their affiliation, has recently been mired in scandal.
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Kim Nam-hee, who was Lee’s “spiritual wife” and his second-in-command, publicly broke up with him after condemning him as a “crook who is interested in nothing but money”.
She accused him of making advances to her when she was married with two children, asserting that she and her family members would die unless she divorced her husband.
“Lee Man-hee is neither a saviour nor a god but a human like all of us. Shincheonji which worships him as a saviour should be disbanded,” she said in a YouTube video.
Additional reporting by Associated Press, Agence France-Presse