SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean authorities were combing through mobile phone data, credit card statements and CCTV footage on Tuesday to identify people who visited nightclubs at the centre of one of the capital’s biggest novel coronavirus clusters.
Quarantine worker spray disinfectants at a night club on the night spots in the Itaewon neighborhood, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Seoul, South Korea, May 12, 2020. Yonhap/via REUTERS
More than 100 new cases linked to the nightclubs have brought fears of a second wave of infections in a country held up as a coronavirus mitigation success story.
Health authorities have tracked and tested thousands of people linked to the nightclubs and bars in Seoul’s Itaewon nightlife neighbourhood, but want to find others who they have not been able to identify.
Authorities fear that the fact some of the establishments were known as gay bars might be putting people off coming forward for testing in a country where homosexuality is for many people still taboo.
“We are using telecom station information and credit card transactions from the nightclubs to identify 1,982 of those who are not available,” health ministry official Yoon Tae-ho told a briefing.
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