80s Grandmother in Yecheon Confirmed 'Mystery'... Is the Infection Link at Ulsan Hyundai Heavy Puzzle Coming Together?

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As Hyundai Heavy Industries employees and their families were consecutively diagnosed with COVID-19, on the 9th, Hyundai employees lined up at the Ulsan Dong-gu Public Health Center screening clinic to get tested.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Park Dong-wook] In Gyeongbuk, new cases of COVID-19 community infections have continued again after three days.

In particular, in Yecheon, an elderly mother in her 80s tested positive after her son, who works at Ulsan Hyundai Heavy Industries, and his wife visited her. As a result, quarantine authorities are struggling to piece together the infection link between Hyundai Heavy Industries and the Yecheon area.

According to Gyeongbuk Province on the 10th, the day before, a man in his 50s and a woman in her 80s in Yeongdeok and Yecheon were confirmed as community infections, and a man in his 20s from Russia was confirmed as an imported case. As of midnight that day, the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the Gyeongbuk area rose to 1,439. The 50-year-old confirmed case in Yeongdeok tested positive during a test conducted after the end of self-quarantine, following the confirmation of his mother, who attended the Gwanghwamun rally, and his sibling couple.

The point that quarantine authorities are most closely monitoring among the confirmed cases that day is the infection route of the 80-year-old grandmother in Yecheon. The grandmother was classified as a contact after her son and daughter-in-law visited their hometown on August 28 and were confirmed positive, and she was tested and confirmed positive.

The grandmother’s son is an employee of Ulsan Hyundai Heavy Industries (the 121st confirmed case in Ulsan), who was confirmed positive on the 8th. His wife (the 125th case in Ulsan) was confirmed the next day. Earlier, in Yecheon-eup, Yecheon-gun, where the grandmother lives, a pharmacist couple was consecutively confirmed positive on August 29 and 30, resulting in a series of confirmed cases centered around the pharmacy.

The key issue is who acted as the COVID-19 transmission vector between the grandmother and her son. This is especially intriguing as it is the key to unraveling the chain of infections among Hyundai Heavy Industries employees in Ulsan.

Considering various circumstances, it cannot be ruled out that the grandmother, exposed to COVID-19 through an unidentified route, transmitted the virus to her son and daughter-in-law who visited the hometown in Yecheon. This is a point that quarantine authorities are closely examining, as it is related to the infection link following the first confirmed case at Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan.

The first confirmed case among Hyundai Heavy Industries employees in Ulsan was reported on September 8. Since then, five colleagues have consecutively tested positive.

According to the investigation by quarantine authorities, the 125th female confirmed case (the wife of the 121st employee and daughter-in-law of the 80-year-old grandmother in Yecheon) showed cold symptoms on the 31st of last month, earlier than the symptoms (fever for three days) of the initial confirmed case 115, who was originally identified as the primary transmission source at Hyundai Heavy Industries.

With no other infection source identified, and given that she showed cold symptoms three days after visiting her mother-in-law’s house in Yecheon with her husband, quarantine authorities are conducting an epidemiological investigation into the possibility that she was infected in Yecheon and then transmitted the virus back to the Hyundai Heavy Industries employee.

Regarding this, a Yecheon-gun Public Health Center official said, "The 80-year-old grandmother is completely unrelated to the confirmed pharmacist couple in Yecheon and lives alone in a rural area of Yecheon-eup with limited mobility. At this point, we are assuming the infection was caused by the visit of her son and daughter-in-law."

On the other hand, a Ulsan quarantine official stated, "The COVID-19 infection routes are currently complex, and we are reviewing all possibilities. We are conducting an in-depth epidemiological investigation into the movements and contacts of the Ulsan 121st couple in the Gyeongbuk Yecheon area."

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