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Cheonan call center facing lawsuit over COVID-19 outbreak
Citizens in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, wait their turn to go through COVID-19 testing at a public health center, Thursday, as infections reported in the region were traced to a call center. Yonhap
By Jun Ji-hye
By Jun Ji-hye
The Shinhan Life Insurance and Shinhan Card call center in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, which has produced a cluster of at least 30 COVID-19 infections, is facing a lawsuit over its negligence in complying with antivirus guidelines aimed at stemming the spread of the contagious disease.
Local government and health authority officials said Friday that they found out during their on-the-spot survey that the call center workers were not even following basic measures such as wearing face masks and keeping a distance between them.
“The call center workers are believed to have been in a poor working environment as there was no proper ventilation system, either,” a Cheonan City official said. “Neglecting antivirus guidelines resulted in the infections there. We are considering filing a lawsuit against those in charge of the call center.”
Call centers have been cited as facilities susceptible to infection clusters due to the usually packed, enclosed work environment.
In March, a call center in Seoul's Guro District, providing customer services for Chubb's ACE American Insurance, became the source of an outbreak, reporting 170 related COVID-19 cases. The government has since stressed the importance of complying with antivirus measures at call centers.
The Cheonan call center is located on the seventh and eighth floor of a building, but the city decided to shut down the entire building as some people from different floors may have come into contact with the infected call center workers in the elevators.
The city also closed about 10 local schools attended by children of the infected workers in a bid to prevent potential virus transmissions.
Health authorities are carrying out coronavirus testing on about 170 people working in the building, raising the possibility that the number of patients can rise further.
Amid continuous sporadic outbreaks across the country, the nation added 145 new infections for Wednesday, raising the total caseload to 27,195, marking a triple-digit increase for the third consecutive day, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
Among the 145, local cases stood at 117 including 72 in Seoul and the metropolitan area, and 25 in South Chungcheong Province.
The daily new cases were the highest since Oct. 22, when 155 new infections were reported, amid growing concerns that Halloween celebrations held Oct. 31 could have sparked another wave of transmissions.
The KDCA, however, announced, also Friday, that the nation will maintain Level 1 social distancing regulations under the government's revised five-tier scheme, though Level 1.5 rules were imposed in Cheonan and nearby Asan in accordance with a decision made by the local government.
“Local governments can adjust social distancing rules applied to their regions depending on the virus situation,” Ministry of Health and Welfare spokesman Sohn Young-rae said during a briefing.
On Nov. 1, the government revised its three-tier social distancing system, subdividing Level 1 and Level 2 to create Level 1.5 and Level 2.5, resulting in a five-tier system to take more specific and tailored antivirus steps in response to the COVID-19 situation.
Sohn added that the government will need to consider imposing Level 1.5 distancing rules in the entire country if the daily new cases continue to increase in the Seoul metropolitan area.