9 High-Risk Facilities Including Emotional Pubs and Noraebang... Entry Log Required (Update)

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] The government has classified nine facilities, including entertainment bars, emotional bars, hunting pubs, karaoke rooms, and danran bars, as high-risk facilities and established mandatory quarantine rules to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

At a meeting on the morning of the 22nd, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters prepared criteria for selecting high-risk facilities, target facilities, and core quarantine rules, and discussed implementation measures.

Following the principle of minimizing the number of high-risk facilities as much as possible and allowing changes depending on the infection occurrence status and social distancing levels, a proposal was presented to classify multi-use facilities frequented by many people into high-risk, medium-risk, and low-risk facilities based on six risk indicators: 'degree of enclosure,' 'density,' 'activity level,' 'crowding,' 'duration,' and 'management.'

Reflecting the risk assessment results, nine facilities were classified as high-risk: hunting pubs, emotional bars, entertainment bars (clubs, room salons, etc.), danran bars, colatecs, karaoke rooms, indoor standing concert halls, large-scale concert venues, and indoor group exercise facilities.

Accordingly, hunting pubs, emotional bars, and entertainment bars must keep a list of visitors and check their symptoms. All working staff must wear masks, and a quarantine manager must be designated to ensure thorough disinfection.

In the case of karaoke rooms, which have recently been a source of COVID-19 transmission in the community, the room used by customers must be closed, disinfected after 30 minutes, and then used by other customers. The rules also include taking a one-hour break during business hours to disinfect the interior.

Users of high-risk facilities are required to accurately record their name and phone number on the list and wear masks as much as possible except when consuming food. Violations may result in fines of up to 3 million won or closure orders for facility owners and users under the 'Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Act.'

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters is also discussing measures to securely collect user lists using information and communication technologies (ICT) such as QR codes and clearly setting the list retention period to four weeks, considering the epidemiological investigation period.

The headquarters stated, "We plan to promptly finalize the core quarantine rules and implementation measures for high-risk facilities by gathering opinions from related ministries, local governments, and stakeholders."

Meanwhile, regarding the Itaewon clubs in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, as of midnight on the same day, about 77,000 COVID-19 diagnostic tests had been conducted, and the cumulative number of confirmed cases was 207.

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