'We are not the virus': Daegu resident breaks silence amid mounting coronavirus fear
Channel: KST by The Korea Times
Date: 2020-02-28

Video By Lee Min-young, Kim Kang-min

Kim Sang-hun is a 27-year-old student who lives in Dalseo-gu, western Daegu, just 15 minutes away from the Shincheonji Daegu Church where the 31st patient, a 61-year-old woman, had attended a service with hundreds others. 

Days later, a cluster of infections followed in Daegu, a city of 2.4 million people, and it took less than a week for the virus to spread across other parts of the country, setting the national tally at 2022, as of Friday.

Overnight, Daegu turned into a city that lies at the heart of South Korea's coronavirus outbreak, or even worse, a city home to a "super-spreader" doomsday religious cult.

Kim says his neighborhood has changed so much ever since the emergence of soaring coronavirus cases centered on the Daegu Shincheonji Church. "I don't hear any of the laughters of children playing in my apartment's playground. The city just silenced out."

He told The Korea Times that it sometimes upsets him when he reads the news and see local media calling the epidemic "Daegu Coronavirus." "It's unfair to treat us like viruses while it's not Daegu where the virus was born. Many of my friends tell me they feel like they are locked away, not welcome anywhere."


[Video footage, photos partially provided by Kim Sang-hoon]
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