Gwangju Mayor Lee Yong-seop Urges Religious Groups to Refrain from All Gathered Worship Services

On the afternoon of the 4th, Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, held a press conference in the city hall briefing room, urging all religious organizations to refrain from gathering worship services and citizens to strictly comply with quarantine rules to prevent the local spread of COVID-19. Photo by Gwangju Metropolitan City

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, appealed to religious organizations on the 4th to "refrain from all collective worship services."

Mayor Lee held a press conference at the Gwangju City Hall briefing room on the same day, stating, "The cumulative number of confirmed cases is 96, with 63 confirmed cases over the past eight days since the 27th of last month. In particular, it was confirmed that a significant number of worshippers at Ilgok Jungang Church did not wear masks during the service and did not comply with social distancing. Additionally, it was confirmed that the church did not properly maintain visitor logs for attendees, failing to fully implement quarantine guidelines."

Mayor Lee said, "We have designated Ilgok Jungang Church as an infection risk facility and will implement administrative facility closure measures from today until the 19th in accordance with Article 49 (Infection Prevention Measures) of the Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Act. We will also investigate compliance with quarantine rules such as visitor log maintenance and actively consider measures such as prosecution if violations are found."

He continued, "All religious organizations should recognize that the current COVID-19 situation is at a critical stage and strongly request that collective worship services be replaced with online or home worship from this time onward. Even if collective worship is unavoidable, it must be limited to fewer than 50 people according to the social distancing level 2 guidelines, and all attendees must strictly follow quarantine rules such as wearing masks, temperature checks, maintaining visitor logs, and keeping a certain distance between people."

He added, "The coronavirus is now at our doorstep. The number of confirmed cases has surged for more than a week, many confirmed cases are asymptomatic, and the transmissibility has become much stronger than before. Once again, I urge all citizens to 'pause' their daily lives this weekend by refraining from unnecessary outings and visits to multi-use facilities."

He further explained, "If quarantine rules and voluntary citizen cooperation are not followed this weekend and infections spread, we will have no choice but to raise the social distancing level to the highest level, level 3. If this happens, all activities in Gwangju will be suspended, causing immeasurable suffering to citizens and enormous social costs."

Mayor Lee said, "The four confirmed cases who tested positive early this morning were transferred to Jeonnam Gangjin Medical Center. I sincerely thank Governor Kim Young-rok of Jeonnam Province and the residents for providing hospital beds during this difficult and challenging time."

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