About 50 Seongju-gun Officials Dine at Same Hotel as 31st COVID-19 Patient (Comprehensive)

Seongju County Governor and officials holding an emergency countermeasure meeting. Photo by Seongju County Office

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Ju Cheol-in] It has been confirmed that public officials in Seongju-gun, Gyeongbuk, dined at the same hotel restaurant as the 31st confirmed patient of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), putting Seongju-gun on high alert.

According to Seongju-gun on the 18th, 51 fellow public officials attended the wedding of public official A at the Queen Bell Hotel in Dong-gu, Daegu, at around 11:30 a.m. on the 15th, and it was confirmed that they dined in the same space as the 31st patient.

Seongju-gun has ordered all of them to work from home starting from the 19th.

Lee Byung-hwan, the mayor of Seongju-gun, asked the residents to respond calmly and urged them not to have excessive fear and anxiety. He also instructed thorough measures to ensure trust among residents according to the guidelines of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On the same day, three public officials from the Gyeongbuk Provincial Office also attended the wedding, and another official was confirmed to have visited the hotel buffet restaurant around the same time as the 31st patient. The province did not take any special measures against these four individuals.

The province instructed city and county health centers to ask those whose movements overlapped with the 31st patient to refrain from going out if they call. Additionally, masks and hand sanitizers are provided if necessary, and people are advised to contact the health center immediately if they experience any health abnormalities.

In the early morning of the same day, an elderly woman in her 80s who came to the emergency room of Andong Hospital and passed away was suspected of having a lung disease, and a COVID-19 test was requested from the Health and Environment Research Institute, which came back negative.

At that time, part of the hospital's emergency room was closed, and the woman's family was quarantined but later released.

Daegu City and Gyeongbuk Province have equipped commuter buses with hand sanitizers and masks and are regularly disinfecting seats and floors with spray-type disinfectants.

A Gyeongbuk provincial official said, "Although we have not been notified of anyone who had contact with the 31st patient, there have been many inquiries from residents who visited the same place, so we are encouraging them to refrain from going out and checking for any abnormalities as a preemptive response."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.