According to the news of many South Korean media such as Korea Daily and East Asia Daily, South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare released a video of “Dance at Home” on January 1 to cheer for the tired citizens of fighting against the epidemic, but the video immediately triggered controversy after the release.
On the 2nd, the Ministry of Health and Welfare apologized on Facebook.
According to the Korean Daily, South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare released the video on Facebook and other social media on the 1st. The video is 2 minutes and 28 seconds long.
It promotes epidemic prevention guidelines such as “washing hands, keeping distance and wearing masks”, and there is a scene of six people wearing masks dancing at home, and the action range is large. The video ends with subtitles like this: Although this is because of a hard year of the epidemic, I hope 2021 will be better. Come on, Republic of Korea!
East Asia Daily said that the video aims to cheer up South Koreans who are tired of fighting the epidemic. But after the release of the video, the controversy followed.
Yonhap said that the video was accused of not conforming to the current social atmosphere of strict epidemic prevention measures and did not take into account such issues such as dancing causing noise between floors
Amid criticism from netizens, South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare posted on Facebook on the 2nd that after the release of the video, it received criticisms about noise between floors and other issues.
It did not fully consider these issues in advance, apologized to the citizens, and said that the relevant videos would be taken to be taken private treatment measures.
South Korea’s Central Epidemic Prevention and Response Headquarters reported on the 2nd that as of 00:00 on the same day, South Korea had 824 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 compared with 00:00 the previous day, with a total of 625.93 million confirmed cases.
South Korea’s Central Disaster Safety Response Headquarters also announced at a regular press conference on the 2nd that the 2.5-level epidemic prevention response measures currently implemented in the capital circle will be extended for another 14 days, and other non-capitalized areas will maintain the level 2 epidemic prevention response until January 17.
In addition, the South Korean government has also decided to extend the core measures of the “special epidemic prevention measures for Christmas and New Year’s Day holidays” and extend the implementation of the measures that originally only applied to the capital circle to private gatherings of more than five people throughout the country, but relaxed some of the restrictions on the operation of winter sports facilities such as cram schools and ski resorts.
