Gyeonggi-do Decides Whether to Hold Major Events Based on 'Risk Assessment'

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Gyeonggi Province will conduct a preliminary 'risk assessment' when holding major events in the fields of culture, arts, sports, and tourism.

Lee Hee-young, co-leader of Gyeonggi Province's COVID-19 Emergency Response Team, stated at a regular briefing on the 22nd, "Due to the disaster situation that has continued for more than 10 months from last year's African Swine Fever to the current COVID-19, major events and festivals in the culture, arts, sports, and tourism sectors in the province have been canceled or scaled down, putting related workers and industries in a livelihood crisis. Gyeonggi Province has judged that in this crisis situation, rather than unconditionally canceling or reducing events, it is necessary to pre-select events that can be safely carried out, and thus decided to establish and apply a risk assessment plan for major events."

The province will actively hold events deemed feasible based on the risk assessment results through thorough preparations such as establishing quarantine measures, and for high-risk events, it will prepare risk mitigation plans and conduct re-evaluations.

If it is judged difficult to hold the event even after re-evaluation, the event will be canceled or postponed to minimize sunk costs and prevent infectious diseases.

This evaluation index was prepared based on the government's 'Risk Assessment Index by Facility' and 'Group Event Quarantine Management Guidelines,' with continuous input from infectious disease experts.

The applicable targets are events hosted or organized by the Gyeonggi Province Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau and related public institutions.

For festivals, a self-assessment is conducted based on the evaluation index at least 2 to 4 months before the event date, and the project is promoted based on the evaluation results. If necessary, comprehensive opinions from infectious disease experts are collected to establish the event plan.

The evaluation index consists of a total of nine items, applying six high-risk facility evaluation indicators from the government such as enclosure and crowding, as well as the basic directions of the group event quarantine management guidelines, with 'manageability' added to include the possibility of identifying attendees.

Also, considering that the government's evaluation index characteristics require flexible application and that ambiguous detailed criteria such as 'generally possible' or 'possible to some extent' may make self-assessment difficult, Gyeonggi Province has specified the evaluation system more concretely and prepared reference standards for each indicator.

The province first applied the evaluation index to the '2020 Rebooting' performance held at the Gyeonggi Arts Center plaza on the 11th and 12th.

The province plans to actively share this risk assessment plan so that it can be applied to various events in cities and counties.

Meanwhile, as of midnight on the 22nd, there were a total of 15 new confirmed cases in the province: 5 related to an office in Gangnam, Seoul, 3 from community transmission, and 7 imported cases.

The number of confirmed cases related to the Gangnam office in Seoul increased by 5 compared to midnight the previous day. The new confirmed cases are colleagues of previously confirmed Seoul cases and had been self-quarantining since the 19th or 20th as contacts.

There are 3 new confirmed cases from community transmission with unknown infection routes. Among them, one confirmed case was found intoxicated in Bucheon City on the 21st and was confirmed positive after being transferred to Soonchunhyang Bucheon Hospital for testing.

The other two confirmed cases are soldiers from a certain unit of the 7th Corps, 8th Division, who tested positive after showing symptoms such as sore throat on the 20th and undergoing screening tests at a medical institution.

The infection routes of these three new confirmed cases are unknown and are currently under in-depth epidemiological investigation.

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