Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Card firms help prevent coronavirus spread
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By Anna J. Park
By Anna J. Park
Amid growing concerns of the worldwide spread of a coronavirus, the country's credit card companies are closely cooperating with the Korea Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (KCDC), to provide information that could help prevent its further transmission.
Detailed card payment information for those confirmed to have the coronavirus has become a valuable resources for the KCDC to track the travel patterns of confirmed patients.
“Since the MERS outbreak in 2015, this is the first time that the credit card association has helped the KCDC to prevent the spread of an epidemic by offering infected customers' card payment information,” an official at the Credit Finance Association (CFA) told The Korea Times, Tuesday.
“Each card company in Korea is operating a 24-hour emergency hotline to the KCDC, while the association is also offering support to the KCDC until 9 p.m. on weekdays as well as through additional work shifts on weekends,” he added.
Such corporation between card companies and the authorities was made possible thanks to a revision to the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act in January 2016 as a follow-up measure to the MERS outbreak in 2015.
The revision allows the KCDC to request “relevant information” on confirmed patients' travel patterns from related companies. A subordinate ordinance states that credit and debit card payment information is relevant information. As the payment information also includes transportation use, the KCDC can get a fuller grasp on confirmed patients' visits.
The CFA and the KCDC began cooperating Jan. 24 when the second coronavirus case was confirmed here. The first confirmed patient in Korea was screened and immediately quarantined upon entering Korea at the airport.
However, the second patient cleared immigration and customs upon entering, and it wasn't until a few days later that he was confirmed to have been infected with the virus, Jan. 24. The KCDC therefore needed to fully track his previous movements to prevent the further spread of the virus.
On Jan. 31, the two institutions established the hotlines for swifter information exchange.
A medical staff member talks to ambulance crews at the National Medical Center in central Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap