Moon’s Middle East visit is criticized for poor timing during the Omicron surge
While South Korea’s daily COVID-19 cases surged to over 16,000 on Thursday, breaking the all-time record, it was revealed that the presidential Blue House hid the fact that numerous people who accompanied President Moon Jae-in’s 8-day trip to the Middle East from January 15 to 22 tested positive.
The Moon administration has bragged about its response to COVID-19 as one of the best in the world and even boasted that it is exporting the so-called K-Quarantine strategy, used by South Korea to limit the spread of the virus.
Some commentators argued that the government hid the fact to avoid criticism for pushing ahead with his trip amid the spread of the highly-contagious Omicron variant while restricting people’s daily lives heavily at home. The main opposition People Power Party criticized the government for taking tough measures that could violate privacy, such as mandatory vaccine passports for restaurants and other places that people use daily, while hiding the Blue House virus situation.
The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper broke the story on Friday. The reason why President Moon put himself in a three-day self-quarantine after his trip even though he is exempt from doing so, as it was an official government-level trip, was that people who accompanied Moon tested positive. There was some speculation over why Moon is under self-quarantine and why he canceled his scheduled Lunar New Year press briefing on Thursday.
An official from the Blue House told the newspaper that “we cannot confirm the health condition of the president since it is confidential, but I am aware that the president and first lady tested negative after the trip.”
The official added, however, “Unfortunately I am aware that several Blue House employees who accompanied them on the trip were infected.”
The official also seemed to criticize the Blue House’s decision not to release this information to the public first. “I can understand they felt burdened by having people tested positive after the trip that was pushed ahead despite the concerns over the Omicron variant,” the official said. “I cannot understand why they did not provide any explanation.”
Another official told the media that the Blue House was not trying to hide the infected cases. “We decided that it is meaningless to disclose individual cases during a situation where daily cases surpassed the 10,000 level,” the official said. “We were not hiding it. If the media asked us, we would have transparently disclosed it.”
The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) released a statement on Friday arguing that the Blue House’s explanation was nonsensical.
“I cannot understand what the Blue House is saying,” said Ham In-kyung, a spokesperson for the PPP’s election team. “Are they trying to say that the people do not have the right to know what is going on inside the Blue House?”
“The government first asked for cooperation from the people, and now they went further to even punish those who violate the vaccine passport policy,” Ham said. Ham argued that a government that should be responsible for responding to the Omicron crisis is showing a shocking attitude toward the ongoing crisis.
“The Blue House knew ahead of the trip that the COVID situation was bad there [in the Middle East],” Ham said. “Did the government decide not to disclose the fact that some employees tested positive to avoid being criticized for pushing ahead with the trip?”
The Munhwa Ilbo newspaper ran an editorial on Friday arguing that the Blue House position on information related to the health condition of Blue House officials is confidential is an absurd argument.
“Most democratic countries disclose their leader’s health condition honestly,” the editorial read. “The infection status of the president and other Blue House officials should be explained well to the people. People have the right to know.”
The editorial pointed out the fact that the government took measures that can have privacy issues such as disclosing where and when individuals who tested positive went. “This is an act of betraying the people and shows that they feel they are above the ordinary people,” the editorial read.
The editorial added that Moon’s trip to the Middle East had no specific agenda that needed to be urgently pushed during the Omicron crisis. “What they achieved from the trip was pathetic as well,” the editorial argued. “There were even those who were mocking the trip as the president’s last overseas vacation during the best time for traveling to Egypt.”
