Prime Minister Jeong: "Mandatory 'Electronic Wristbands' for Self-Quarantine Violators Such as Unauthorized Departure"

Prime Minister Jeong Sye-kyun

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwangho Lee] Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun announced on the 11th, "We have concluded that electronic wristbands will be worn only by those under self-quarantine who violate guidelines such as unauthorized departure or refusal to answer phone calls."

Prime Minister Chung presided over the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCH) meeting on COVID-19 held at the Government Seoul Office and said, "We gathered opinions from quarantine experts, local communities, political circles, and listened carefully to what the public thinks. While many opinions supported the introduction, there were also considerable concerns about human rights violations. We deeply considered the fact that those under self-quarantine are neither criminals nor negligent," he stated.

He added, "We will enhance the current self-quarantine management system by upgrading functions of safety protection applications such as motion detection and significantly strengthening random inspections. I will explain the specific details after the meeting."

Prime Minister Chung continued, "Yesterday, the number of new confirmed cases dropped to 27, and notably, there were no new cases in Daegu. Although we cannot lower our guard, it is true that we feel relieved. Compared to the urgent situation where the Mayor of Daegu and I were running around the field to secure hospital beds for the rapidly increasing patients, this is truly an astonishing turnaround," he remarked.

He expressed deep gratitude, saying, "I sincerely thank the medical staff and volunteers on the ground who created this near-miraculous turnaround, the Daegu city officials, and above all, the citizens of Daegu who responded calmly with a high level of civic awareness."

Prime Minister Chung also said, "It has been two days since the unprecedented online school opening and remote classes began. Thanks to the good response on the ground, the process proceeded without major confusion despite some shortcomings. There were cases of unstable or interrupted connections, and there were quite a few complaints about the quality of remote classes. When online school opens next Thursday for students in fourth grade and above, the load is expected to increase more than fourfold compared to now," he explained.

He urged, "Please use the weekend to secure server processing capacity and correct the issues raised over the past two days as much as possible. It would also be good to discover exemplary cases of remote classes with high student satisfaction and share them so that other schools and teachers can benchmark them."