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By Kim Hyun-bin, Kim Jae-heun
Fear of a second wave of COVID-19 is spreading fast in the country. Over 1,300 COVID-19 infections have surfaced in the last six days, and industry is scrambling to take preventive measures against further infections by strengthening their quarantine measures.
The pandemic has taken a toll on local companies due to the global economic downturn, especially critical for most leading exporters as they rely heavily on exports for profitability. The uncertainty of the second wave has companies on their toes as it equates to major losses for them and will become especially difficult to recuperate given companies' ongoing struggles to recover from losses incurred during the first wave of the pandemic.
Manufacturing businesses are on extremely high alert as even a single infection of an employee could lead to an eventual production shutdown for several days to conduct disinfection measures on the premises, resulting in heavy losses.
The companies have been taking matters into their own hands by strengthening quarantine measures and more companies have been transitioning to more contactless work by immediately initiating work-from-home policies.
Samsung Seoul R&D Campus is taking extra precautionary measures in its quarantine efforts as it suffered losses from a confirmed case of a COVID-19-infected worker being detected at their facilities in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province in the past. The company has urged employees to maintain good hygiene and abide by company quarantine regulations.
LG also limits non-essential visitation from external parties at their buildings as well as reducing domestic and international business travel. It also halted gatherings, events and educational programs in excess of 50 people in one location and also limits face-to-face meetings with over 10 people.
Major telecom companies have switched to work-from-home. SK Telecom and KT decided to let its employees work from home through this week. Kakao which had ended its work from home policy early last month will re-instantiate and extended its policy indefinitely as of this coming Friday.
Naver, the country's leading portal, allowed its employees to remotely work three days a week from home. Nexon implemented the "4 + 1" work policy where employees only need to come to the office once a week while the remaining days they are allowed to work from home. NCSOFT also put employees on rotation.
Many of the conglomerates are worried the COVID-19 crisis will become much worse than the first wave in February and March.
Local retailers cautious of virus
The local retail industry has been slowly making recovery from its worst sales slump struck by COVID-19 in the first half of the year.
The massive spread of the virus started from a church in Seoul and spread across the metropolis, the government has decided to toughen the social distancing rules in the capital city and Gyeonggi Province.
Fast food restaurants, coffee shops and movie theaters that have been visited by confirmed patients were all temporarily shut down.
American coffeehouse chain Starbuck's branch in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, will remain closed until Friday as 54 people have been confirmed to have been infected by the virus there as of Wednesday.
The country's largest multiplex cinema chain CGV shut down its movie theaters in Yongsan and Apgujeong in Seoul for a day on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. But they have reopened since.
On Sunday, Lotte World also closed after a confirmed patient was confirmed to have visited the theme park. After disinfecting measures the amusement park reopened the following day.
Travel industry on alert
The government spent 29 billion won to distribute some 1 million coupons giving travel-related discounts of as much as 40,000 won per person starting last Friday. However, people have started to make cancellations of their accommodation reservation after the number of COVID-19 cases spiked in the past week.
At one hotel in Seoul, 10 percent of reservations have been cancelled.
1.5-tier business hotel brand, Shilla Stay had to ask their customers to leave their accommodation branch in Seodaemun, Seoul, on Sunday after a COVID-19 patient was confirmed to have stayed at the residence.
Supermarkets and department stores are also watching the situation closely.
They were expected to make a rebound in sales with a major discount event last weekend just as COVID-19 began to spread again.
On the stock market, Monday, all three retail brands E-mart, Lotte Shopping and Hyundai Department Store saw their shares sharply drop.
E-commerce firms are making efforts to disinfect their logistic centers. A deliveryman working at Coupang's warehouse in Incheon was diagnosed with the virus last Friday, which led the facility to close down for a day.
The online commerce companies 11st and eBay Korea ordered their employees to work from home starting Tuesday. Coupang has been obligating half of its employees at headquarters to work remotely.
Starbucks Korea decided to reduce 30 percent of the tables in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province for better in-store social distance measures.
Low-cost carriers have been barely holding out in the market only able to operate domestic flights and those to a handful of international destinations, but the already meagre demand is likely to further drop from what looks very much like a new wave of the pandemic.
Full-service carriers made a breakthrough with shifting to cargo operations but their former main business of international passenger flights doesn't seem to have any basis to improve within this year.
The strengthened measures come after the government urged companies to swiftly implement the work from home polices.
"If we are not able to prevent the spread of the virus we will need to raise social distancing to Level 3," said Kwon Joon-wook, deputy director at the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Korea raised the social distancing level in Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province recently by one notch to Level 2 in the three-tier system for two weeks. The Level 3 social distancing measures are applied when the country's average daily new infections rate stays above 100 for over two weeks.
Under the measures, gatherings of 10 or more people are restricted, excluding crucial meetings for business and state affairs.
Sports events will be held without spectators and operations of public facilities will be suspended. High risk facilities including bars and clubs need to suspend operations while other facilities are mandated to follow safety guidelines.
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