In South Korea, coronavirus anxiety keeps wary shoppers at home

Despite government assurances that the virus will soon be ‘terminated’ locally, Chinatowns across the country have emptied out

Consumers are not only wary of catching the highly contagious virus, the trauma of 2015’s deadly Mers outbreak is still fresh in their minds

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A man wearing a faces mask passes by the main entrance gate to Chinatown in Incheon, South Korea, on Friday. Photo: AP

Published: 6:30pm, 14 Feb 2020Updated: 9:51pm, 28 Feb 2020

In South Korea, an eerie silence has fallen over the country’s most famous Chinatowns in Incheon City, west of Seoul, as customers stayed away in their droves over fears they might catch the novel coronavirus.

Deserted pavements and empty shops turned the otherwise bustling district into something like a ghost town, with several restaurants’ front doors plastered with notices announcing “temporarily closed”.

Zealous public hygiene efforts and the imposition of restrictions on travellers from mainland China – as well as increased scrutiny of those from Hong Kong, which has more than 50 cases – seem to have kept the highly contagious virus, which causes a pneumonia-like disease known as Covid-19, at bay.

Activists in South Korea at a protest on Tuesday demanding the government prevent Chinese students from returning to the country over fears of the outbreak. Photo: EPA

The number of confirmed cases in South Korea has remained unchanged at 28 since Tuesday, with seven of those having made a full recovery.

One of the seven, a traveller from the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei province, the epicentre of the contagion, later told journalists that it was “hardly worse than a bad flu”, while pouring forth “heartfelt” gratitude for medical personnel who treated him in quarantine.