Korea’s Constitutional Court to review COVID-19 pass

South Korea will secure 10,000 additional hospital beds for COVID-19 patients in January to counter the increasing number of critically ill coronavirus patients, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Wednesday. If the government successfully adds hospital beds, the total number could increase to 25,000. “(The government) will take preemptive measures in case the country’s daily COVID-19 cases reach 15,000,” Kim said during a COVID-19 response meeting of the Central Disaster and

A man who stunned the nation earlier this year by sexually assaulting and killing a 20-month-old baby girl was sentenced to 30 years in prison by a court in the central city of Daejeon on Wednesday. The Daejeon District Court handed down the sentence to the 29-year-old man, identified only by his surname Yang, after convicting him of raping and killing the baby daughter of his live-in girlfriend in June. Yang was indicted for abusing and killing the baby girl because she did not stop crying on

South Korea's drug safety agency said Wednesday that it has begun reviewing an emergency authorization of US drug giant Pfizer Inc.'s oral drug to treat COVID-19. Paxlovid is the antiviral pill for the treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 in patients at increased risk of hospitalization or death, according to Pfizer and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. If authorized, Paxlovid would be the first oral antiviral of its kind in South Korea. The drug candidate is a protease inhibitor antivi

A former elementary school principal indicted for allegedly installing a spy camera in a female teachers' restroom admitted to all charges against him in his first court hearing Wednesday. The 57-year-old former principal at the school in Anyang, 23 kilometers south of Seoul, was charged with the sexual offenses last month for allegedly fitting a tiny camera inside a tissue box in the restroom in late October to secretly film women while serving as the school's chief. He was dismissed from the

A man has been arrested in Wonju, Gangwon Province, in connection to the killing of a landlord who was found dead in a residential building she owned on Dec. 15. According to local police on Wednesday, the suspect, in his 40s, had been living secretly in a one-bedroom unit in the victim’s building in Wonju. The attack occurred when the landlord, who lived in Gyeonggi Province, came to check on her property and found the illegal tenant. Police, acting on a missing person report filed

South Korea will secure an additional 10,000 hospital beds for patients with moderate to serious cases of COVID-19 by the middle of next month, raising their total number to 25,000, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Wednesday. The plan comes as the country has experienced a shortage of hospital beds due to alarming increases in the number of critically ill COVID-19 patients. Kim said the additional beds will enable hospitals to cope in a situation where daily COVID-19 cases reach 10,000. Recent

South Korea's new coronavirus cases spiked to above 7,000 on Wednesday, and the number of critically ill patients surged to a record high. The country added 7,456 more COVID-19 cases, including 7,365 local infections, bringing the cumulative total to 583,065, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. Wednesday's tally is sharply up from 5,318 on Monday and 5,202 on Tuesday. The number of new daily cases usually shrinks at the beginning of the week due to less testing over th

QR codes shared and sold, while some merchants reject system for ‘survival’

The number of protests held this year has jumped, even as the country’s daily coronavirus tally and the number of critically ill patients have continued to increase throughout this year. According to the National Police Agency’s report released Tuesday, the number of demonstrations held nationwide during the January-November period reached 79,407, around 238 protests per day. Last year, the figure marked 77,453 over the same period, police said. Demonstrations particularly spik

Four local governments in the central region of South Korea -- Daejeon, Sejong and the North and South Chungcheong provinces -- are gearing up in their shared bid to host the 2027 FISU World University Games. The Chungcheong Megacity Bid Committee, a joint organization launched by the local governments for the bid, has completed the needed procedures, and is now working on promotions with local residents. According to the CMBC, local residents in the Chungcheong Megacity region are supporti

The labor union of South Korea's biggest carrier Korean Air Lines Co. on Tuesday lodged a complaint against a female YouTuber who appears in underwear in a lookbook video before putting on flight attendant uniforms, alleging that she defamed the reputation of flight attendants. The complaint was filed with Seoul's Gangnam Police Station against the YouTuber who recently triggered a sexual commodification controversy by uploading an 8-minute video in which she appears only in underwear and chang

A husband may face a criminal charge after he abandoned his wife along the expressway at midnight after an argument. The wife was found dead the next morning, about 700 meters from where she was left behind. The severity of her injuries suggested she had been hit by a car. Police are now reviewing the case to see if the husband could be charged with “death by abandonment,” which is punished by imprisonment of at least three years in South Korea. Should he be criminally charged?&

Front-line doctors in Korea are calling on the government to retract new guidelines limiting the amount of time COVID-19 patients can be admitted to intensive care to 20 days. In an effort to ease the bed crisis, the government told hospitals last week that it would be imposing a cap of 20 days for how long a COVID-19 patient can stay in an intensive care unit. Beyond the 20-day period, the national health insurance waiver for COVID-19-related treatment costs will end for patients and hospit

Owners of restaurants, cafes and other small businesses plan to hold a rally in Seoul this week to protest the government's implementation of toughened gathering restrictions and business curfews, according an association of small merchants Tuesday. The so-called national emergency association of small business against COVID-19 said it plans to hold the rally Wednesday afternoon near Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul. The number of participants was set at 299 in line with the latest gathering