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COVID-19 response chief tapped to lead health ministry
Jeong Eun-kyeong, center, nominee for minister of health and welfare, speaks to the press about her nomination in Jung District, Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
By Park Ung
Jeong Eun-kyeong, who led South Korea’s COVID-19 response as head of the national disease control agency, was nominated Sunday to serve as minister of health and welfare.
Her appointment signals the Lee Jae Myung administration’s commitment to a data-driven, public health-focused approach to complex social challenges. A respected epidemiologist, Jeong brings scientific expertise to a ministry grappling with growing pressures from an aging population and declining birthrate. The move also underscores a deliberate effort to place seasoned, high-level expertise at the helm of key agencies.
“I feel a deep sense of responsibility being nominated as the first health and welfare minister under the new administration,” Jeong said in a statement following her nomination. “As the country faces a rapidly worsening crisis of low birthrates and aging, public demand for welfare is steadily increasing amid growing social inequality.”
Born in Gwangju in 1965, Jeong is a physician by training. She earned her medical degree from Seoul National University and later received a master’s degree in public health and a doctorate in preventive medicine from the same institution.
Jeong began her public service career in 1995 and became the first woman to lead the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2017. Following the outbreak of COVID-19, the agency was upgraded to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) in 2020, with Jeong named its inaugural commissioner.
She became a nationally recognized figure while leading the country’s pandemic response between 2020 and 2022.
She held as many as 147 briefings in 2020 alone, communicating the government’s containment efforts to the public. Even before Korea confirmed its first case, she worked closely with the academic community to monitor the global outbreak, share early data and prepare the country’s testing system — efforts widely credited with Korea’s success in managing the pandemic.
Then-Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong, right, speaks during a briefing about the COVID-19 pandemic in Sejong City, Dec. 16, 2021. Yonhap
After stepping down, Jeong became a clinical professor at Seoul National University Hospital. She later emerged as a strong candidate for health minister after serving as one of the chief campaign chairs for the Democratic Party of Korea in the recent presidential race.
Following her nomination, Jeong pledged to strengthen income security, expand state-run caregiving from infancy through old age and ease tensions between the medical community and the government. Her remarks come amid a prolonged standoff with striking trainee doctors protesting a government plan to increase medical school admissions. She also vowed to bolster regional and public health care services and promote the biohealth industry as a new engine of growth.
But her nomination also sets the stage for a critical and potentially contentious confirmation hearing, where her ambitious policy agenda is expected to be overshadowed by intense scrutiny of her personal life.
At her upcoming confirmation hearing, the opposition People Power Party (PPP) is expected to focus on allegations that Jeong’s husband profited from the COVID-19 pandemic while she led the nation’s disease response. Last week, Rep. Kim Mi-ae of the PPP claimed Jeong’s husband invested in COVID-related stocks, such as test kit and mask companies, during the outbreak and earned significant returns.
“While Jeong was urging the public to wear masks and use self-test kits, her family was profiting from the very measures she promoted,” Park Sung-hoon, floor spokesperson for the PPP, said Sunday.
Speaking to reporters on her way to work Monday, Jeong responded to the allegations. “Many of the media reports about my husband’s stock trades are inaccurate. I will clarify the facts thoroughly during the confirmation hearing and explain everything truthfully to the public.”