Seoul City Reports Churches Holding On-Site Worship Services... Comprehensive On-Site Inspections at 88 General and Nursing Hospitals (Comprehensive)

40 Cases of Sunday In-Person Worship Held Despite Ban... Metropolitan Area Bed Occupancy Rate at 76%

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] On the 31st, Seoul City announced that it had identified 40 churches that forcibly held in-person worship services on the 30th, the first day of the strengthened Level 2 "social distancing" measures in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

The city, together with 25 autonomous districts, conducted on-site inspections at 2,839 churches in the city the previous day and confirmed that 40 churches, accounting for 1.4% of the total, forcibly held in-person worship services.

Earlier, on the 23rd, 17 out of 3,894 churches were caught holding in-person worship services with more than 20 people gathered. Seoul City issued a gathering restriction order prohibiting in-person worship services at religious facilities on the 19th.

After strengthening quarantine guidelines for religious facilities, the city focused inspections on churches that had never been inspected before, as well as those suspected of violating the gathering restriction order, such as those that expressed intentions to forcibly hold in-person worship services during previous inspections.

In addition, the city issued gathering prohibition orders to the churches caught violating the rules and plans to file criminal charges against Dongmun Church and Yeongcheon Seonggyeol Church, which were caught holding in-person worship services for two consecutive weeks.

Yoo Yeon-sik, Director of the Seoul City Culture Headquarters, emphasized, "Some churches are blatantly violating government guidelines, greatly hindering quarantine policies, causing harm to the majority of churches that comply with government directives," and added, "If confirmed cases arise from forcibly held in-person worship services, we will seek compensation."

Meanwhile, as of today, the occupancy rate of COVID-19 treatment beds in Seoul and the metropolitan area stands at 76%.

The city plans to deploy 140 beds at Seoul Red Cross Hospital starting next month on the 1st, and 80 beds at the Northern Hospital starting on the 7th for COVID-19 treatment. Additionally, about 1,000 beds at residential treatment centers for asymptomatic and mild patients will be prepared at public institutions and corporate training centers.

Park Yu-mi, Seoul City's Quarantine Control Officer, stated, "We are continuously working with tertiary hospitals to add more intensive care beds," and added, "Due to the recent surge of confirmed COVID-19 cases in medical institutions, we will conduct emergency on-site inspections over two days targeting 88 general and nursing hospitals in cooperation with city autonomous districts."

During the inspections, Park said they plan to check whether proper education and management are being conducted for medical institution staff, their families, visitors, and caregivers, and whether infection prevention guidelines are being properly followed.

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