The government’s social distancing policies have been effective in lowering the number of infections; however, these policies have also had tremendous side effects. Citizens have been suffering in economic terms as people spend less in the economy while owners have to cover their fixed costs.
Many businesses have gone bankrupt, people have borrowed large sums of money from banks, and owners have laid off employees to reduce operation costs. These consequences have led some people to believe that perhaps adopting a living-with-COVID policy would be better than continuing the current strict distancing policies.
The first social distancing measure imposed by the Korean government required all businesses to close at 9pm for two weeks from December 5 to 19, 2020. However, this measure was not as effective as the government expected.
In fact, people socialized more during the daytime and on weekends before 9pm, which worsened traffic jams on weekends. Furthermore, it negatively affected restaurant owners, who struggled to keep their businesses running under the restricted opening hours.
Especially, people who run bars experienced severe difficulties. Usually, bars open very late, at about 9pm; however, due to the mandated closing time of 9pm, bar owners had to open their bars early, at 6pm, and operated for a maximum of three hours.
Not being able to open late had a tremendous financial impact on owners, given their many fixed costs such as rent, electricity, and employee wages, among others. It was extremely difficult for owners to cover these costs when their revenue was hugely affected.
Recently, the government reportedly held a conference to discuss a new social distancing adjustment plan. Three new plans were introduced at the meeting: maintaining the current social distancing plan, which ends on January 16, 2022 (for private gatherings of four people and business hours limited to 9pm), for two to four more weeks, easing business hours restrictions in consideration of the suffering of the self-employed, and eliminating the limitation of the number of people at gatherings during the Lunar New Year holiday.
The government believes that restricting business hours and the size of private gatherings is an effective way to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Nevertheless, taking into account the inconvenience of strengthened social distancing, the government set the period for the new social distancing adjustment plan at three weeks (January 17 to February 6).
On January 14, the government is expected to finalize the new plan and formalize an additional supplementary budget to support small business owners and the self-employed at a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters (CDC). In addition to increasing the number of people allowed to gather from four to six, the remaining quarantine measures will remain at the current level.
The current "Disaster Pass" will continue to be applied to 15 types of facilities, including restaurants, cafes, and hypermarkets. If the government maintains this measure until February 6, it will strengthen the social distancing measures again and maintain its strict social distancing for the seventh consecutive week.
This is due to concerns that the Lunar New Year holiday could cause a surge in infections in line with the spread of the new Omicron variant.
The government decided to leave open the possibility of reinforcing the quarantine guidelines once again if the spread of Omicron intensifies, even amid the new three-week period of social distancing. This is because the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 is increasing rapidly.
There have been many conflicting opinions as to whether these COVID-19 policies are beneficial for Korean citizens. The persistent restriction of the opening hours of businesses is causing great harm to the self-employed and to the economy.
Hence, the government should relax this policy, as well as increase the permitted size of private gatherings from four to six people, toward adopting a living-with-COVID policy, similar to other countries, and alleviating the damage such restrictions do to our economy.
Yoohyun Jeon
Grade 11
Idyllwild Arts Academy