With rival political groups set to go head to head in the April parliamentary elections, the Moon Jae-in administration’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak is dominating election campaigns. The outbreak has killed at least 152 people in South Korea and infected 9,583 so far. The conservative opposition United Future Party is urging voters to pass judgment on the “failed” response of President M...

Candidate registration for the April 15 elections began Thursday -- at stake are 300 seats in the 21st National Assembly. Largely overshadowed by the coronavirus outbreak, the poll outcome will shape the country’s political landscape two years before the next presidential election and serve as a litmus test of public sentiment for President Moon Jae-in and his liberal Democratic Party. Currentl...

The government has started running a program from Thursday that takes just 10 minutes to trace people who may have been exposed to the novel coronavirus, in the latest technology adopted to combat the pandemic. Co-developed by the Land Ministry, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus tracker allows data of confirmed COVID-19 patients t...

The coronavirus pandemic is expected to disrupt the upcoming April general elections, as its consequences have extended to every corner of the daily lives of voters. The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented uncertainty on the election, as voters could eschew casting ballots in fear of the risk of contagion in crowded polling places. Revised election rules adopting a mixed-member proporti...

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office has launched a special unit to conduct a wide-range investigation into a digital sex case which involves a man who produced and sold videos of minors who were forced to perform violent sex acts. The 21-member task force team that specialize in child and youth crimes and recovering illegally obtained gains from criminals will look into the case that i...

Schools are closed, but the vast majority of private educational institutions in Seoul continue to offer classes in defiance of the social distancing campaign, the Education Ministry said Tuesday. The ministry warned that the institutions could be forcibly shut down if they do not comply with the government’s guidelines to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, which so far has killed over 12...

The death toll from the novel coronavirus in South Korea reached 100 on Friday, about a month after it reported the first death. Two elderly patients infected with the virus died in the southeastern city of Daegu, hit hardest by the Covid-19 outbreak. The deceased were a 86-year-old woman, who had suffered from stroke for six years and a 92-year-old man with a history of diabetes, cerebral infar...

South Korea said Friday that it had decided to exempt residents of the “special disaster zones” in the southeastern part of the county from reserve forces training this year. The exemption covers those who reside or work in Daegu, Gyeongsan, Cheongdo and Bonghwa, the Ministry of Defense said. “We decided to exempt reservists of the designated area from training sessions for the reserve forces t...

With the domestic spread of the novel coronavirus slowing down, the South Korean government will begin screening all international arrivals this week to prevent it from coming in from abroad. Special quarantine procedures will be applied to all travelers arriving here, not just foreign nationals but Koreans too, starting Thursday, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

The government said Monday that mass gatherings could play a “pivotal role” in spurring greater community transmission of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, as new cases linked to churches stoked concerns here. Recent cases in the metropolitan area involved gatherings, such as religious services, where people had sustained close contact in enclosed spaces and this resulted in mass transmissio...

The South Korean government remains cautious on additional clusters of the novel coronavirus infections in Seoul and other populous cities, although new infections dropped below 100 for the first time in over three weeks Sunday. Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said the government was considering virus screening on all international arrivals, not just foreign nationals but Koreans returning from o...

South Korea reported 76 new cases of coronavirus and three more deaths on Sunday, bringing the nation’s total infections to 8,162 and death toll to 75, according to health authorities. New infections dropped below 100 for the first time in over three weeks since Feb. 21. Of the new cases, 45 were confirmed in the southeastern city of Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province at the heart of the count...

In response to a spike in the coronavirus caseload, South Korea has turned private dormitories and state-run training facilities into hospital wards now housing over 2,500 patients with mild symptoms. As of Wednesday morning, 2,358 COVID-19 patients in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province have been admitted to 13 such facilities across the country, according to the Central Disaster and Safety Cou...

Homeless people and poor senior citizens are doing without hot meals as soup kitchens shut down and volunteers shun crowds in the aftermath of the new coronavirus outbreak that has killed dozens here. Soup kitchens are desperately waiting for the crisis to wane so they can normalize their service. The Angel Soup Kitchen, a nonprofit organization that operates 26 centers across the country, shut...

Medical experts are scurrying to analyze new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus involving newborn babies, pregnant women and those who tested positive after their quarantine ended. So far, eight pregnant women have been placed in isolation after contracting COVID-19 in Daegu and Busan. One gave birth on Friday in Daegu, marking the first such birth in the country. The baby tested negative...