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A gym in Seoul’s Jongno District is sparsely occupied on Dec. 6. (Yonhap News)

The South Korean government’s decision to raise the social distancing regime to Level 2.5 in the Seoul Capital Area (SCA) as of Dec. 8 means that nearly all social and economic activity outside the home will have to be suspended after 9 pm for the next three weeks.

Karaoke rooms and indoor athletic facilities such as gyms are required to shut down even during the day, and masks will be required for distances of less than two meters even in outdoor settings.

Areas outside the SCA will upgrade to Level 2 measures, meaning that only takeout and delivery services will be available at restaurants after 9 pm, and at coffee shops during all operating hours.

“With the upgrade to Level 2.5 measures in Greater Seoul, 463,000 businesses will face restrictions on their operating hours and the number of customers they can permit, and 129,000 will be subject to shutdowns,” the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCH) announced on Dec. 6.

Major crowd facilities such as restaurants, movie theaters, internet cafes, hair salons, gaming rooms, large supermarkets, department stores, and amusement parks will not be allowed to operate after 9 pm. Smaller supermarkets measuring 300 square meters or less can continue operating, while restaurants and coffee shops will be allowed to provide takeout and delivery services after 9 pm.

“This does not mean that it is safe to eat at restaurants before 9 pm,” the CDSCH stressed.

“Unless it is difficult for them to eat at home, people should refrain from eating at restaurants as much as possible,” it urged.

Establishments that do not fall in the category of essential industry will be shut down even during the day. Karaoke rooms, indoor athletic facilities (including gyms, pool halls, and swimming pools), promotion centers for door-to-door and other direct sales, and private after-school academies —which had been allowed to operate through 9 pm under the previous “Level 2 plus alpha” regime — will be subject to assembly bans throughout the day. The shutdown of cram schools, normally a Level 3 measure, reflects the growing number of cases among young people. Exceptions will be granted to academies specializing in courses for the 2021 university entrance examination and job-specific training for working professionals.

Companies are advised to have at least a third of their staff work from home, while elementary, middle, and high schools must adopt online classes for at least two thirds of their student bodies at any given time. Sporting events, which had allowed spectators up to 10% of maximum capacity, will have to be held without spectators. Religious assemblies involving more than 20 people are banned. Max capacity for weddings, commemoration ceremonies, and presentations will be further restricted from 100 people to 50 or fewer. To restrict SCA residents from visiting other regions, transportation services such as the KTX high-speed railway and express buses are advised to slash seat reservations by half.

While regions outside the SCA are to be upgraded to Level 2 as of Dec. 8, local governments will be given authority to adjust their disease control measures accordingly. Gwangju and Busan had already implemented Level 2 measures, which aim to make evening gatherings more difficult. In addition to the restrictions on restaurants and coffee shops, indoor athletic facilities are required to close by 9 pm. Clubs, singles pubs, and other nightlife establishments are required to close completely. Weddings and other gatherings and events will be restricted to fewer than 100 attendees.

For schools outside of the SCA, Level 2 measures require elementary and middle schools to restrict on-campus capacity to one third, high schools to two-thirds. The Ministry of Education explained, “Since a lot of regions outside of the Seoul Capital Area had already been applying Level 2 measures, the scope of changes to schools is not expected to be large.”

While regimes have typically been announced for two-week periods when the distancing level has been raised in the past, the latest measures were announced for a three-week period. Yoon Tae-ho, general director of disease prevention for the Central Disaster Management Headquarters, explained, “With the Christmas holidays coming up at the end of the year, we determined that the situation will need to be managed in a stable fashion over the next three weeks.”

By Choi Ha-yan and Park Jun-yong, staff reporters

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