Jinju City Prepares Detailed Implementation Plan for Jinju-style Bathhouse Business Quarantine Guidelines

Strong Recommendation to Switch to Coupon System, Waterproof Mask Wearing in Bathhouses
Placement of Quarantine Management Assistants... One Inspection per Day with 'One Strike Out' Policy

Joo Kyu-il, Mayor of Jinju City, is announcing the detailed implementation plan for Jinju-style bathhouse industry quarantine guidelines.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Choi Soon-kyung] Jinju City in Gyeongnam announced on the 18th that it has recently established a comprehensive plan to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infections in bathhouse businesses to quickly contain the cluster infection at Pharos Health Sauna.

Jinju has 98 bathhouses, with 105 business owners and about 560 employees working in the industry.

The city plans to distribute and implement the 'Jinju-style quarantine rules' for bathhouse facility operators and users starting from the 27th, when business resumes after the lifting of the gathering ban.

The main points include actively recommending the transition from membership-based (monthly bath) to coupon system usage. Incentives and water bill discounts will be provided to establishments that switch to the coupon system. By the 22nd, a survey will be conducted across all 98 bathhouses in the region on 12 items such as the presence of benches, chairs, TVs, disinfectors for shared items, and sweat rooms. Starting from the 27th, the use of these items will be suspended.

Additionally, 155 quarantine management assistants will be assigned to 94 bathhouse facilities to work six hours a day. These assistants will manage and report real-time entry of bathhouse visitors, check and guide users on wearing waterproof masks, and ensure that bathhouse usage time does not exceed one hour. Monitoring of COVID-19 infection among bathhouse facility workers will also be conducted.

Furthermore, until a separate lifting is announced, an inspection team will be formed to check compliance with quarantine rules once daily during peak hours. If violations are detected, administrative measures such as fines will be imposed under a 'one-strike-out' policy.

The city also purchased 30,000 waterproof masks to distribute based on monthly and daily bathhouse users. At the entrances of bathhouses, signboards will be installed indicating the designated quarantine manager, the number of people allowed per area, and notices restricting entry of those with suspicious symptoms to ensure thorough quarantine management.

A city official urged, “Although all citizens are making efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the infection continues to spread in bathhouses due to the carelessness of a few individuals. We ask not only citizens but also bathhouse business owners and employees to actively cooperate with the newly established comprehensive plan to prevent infection spread.”

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