Seongnam City Hall and Bundang District Office Closed... Advisory Committee Member and Public Service Worker Confirmed Positive

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] One part-time advisory committee member and one public service worker working at Seongnam City Hall and Bundang District Office tested positive for the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), leading to the closure of both the city hall and district office.

Seongnam City Hall and the district office announced that a part-time advisory committee member appointed by the Architecture Department, who commuted to the city hall (Seongnam City case number 628), tested positive for COVID-19 around 11 a.m. that day. It was confirmed that the mayor of Seongnam, Eun Soo-mi, who attended the meeting with the advisory committee member, underwent testing and received a negative result.

The advisory committee member commuted once a week to the 7th floor Architecture Department of the city hall and recently worked on the 23rd. The city’s quarantine authorities temporarily closed all nine floors of the city hall from 2 p.m. and are conducting disinfection.

Additionally, diagnostic tests have been initiated for about 150 employees in five departments on the 7th floor of the city hall’s East Building (Architecture Department, Housing Department, Taxation Department, Urban Planning Department, Apartment Housing Department), the Tourism Department on the 8th floor of the East Building, and the Sustainability Department on the 5th floor of the West Building, who were confirmed to have had direct or indirect contact with the advisory committee member.

The confirmed advisory committee member also attended a meeting on the 19th that Mayor Eun Soo-mi participated in. Accordingly, the mayor canceled her external schedule that afternoon, underwent testing, and received a negative result around 7 p.m.

Prior to this, a public service worker (Seongnam City case number 620) working at Bundang District Office also tested positive, leading to the closure of the district office from the morning of that day. The public service worker was classified as a contact of their mother (Seongnam City case number 606), who tested positive on the 24th, underwent testing, and was confirmed positive on the same day. This public service worker had been working in the Economic and Transportation Department on the 4th floor of Bundang District Office.

The city’s quarantine authorities have set up a temporary screening clinic at the district office and are conducting comprehensive diagnostic testing for all 531 district office employees.