How Did the Seoul Dongbu Detention Center End up a "COVID Prison"?

[경향신문]

The number of COVID-19 cases in the Seoul Dongbu Detention Center surpassed 1,000 just forty days after the first case was confirmed in the center.

This is the biggest cluster of transmission in South Korea following the clusters at Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu and Sarang Jeil Church. In these two cases, the virus spread because the churches failed to keep preventive measures, so from the government’s perspective, there was not much that it could do to prevent the contagion. Unlike these two clusters, the massive transmissions at Dongbu Detention Center were a “man-made” disaster that occurred because the government failed in its quarantine measures.

According to the Ministry of Justice and the Central Disease Control Center on January 4, until the previous day a total of 1,084 cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in connection to the Dongbu Detention Center. Just the previous day alone, 121 new cases were confirmed. At the time of the first diagnostic test of all inmates, the center held 2,419 inmates, so four out of ten were positive for COVID-19. This day, the total number of COVID-19 cases in correctional facilities nationwide increased to 1,116.

The justice ministry failed in its initial response. At the Dongbu Detention Center, one staff was confirmed positive for the novel coronavirus on November 27, 2020. When a cluster of transmissions occur, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters and the local government deploys contact tracers, tests everyone, and separates the people who are COVID-19-positive, who have come in close contact with a patient, and who are not infected in different places. But the authorities at Dongbu Detention Center only conducted diagnostic tests of 292 people who came in contact with the first patient in the center. The first test of all inmates was conducted three weeks later on December 18.

During those three weeks, the virus spread out of control. When authorities tested all the inmates, they confirmed 187 additional cases. In this period, as few as 2-3 people and as many as 10 people continued to live together, showering and eating meals together in the correctional facility. Masks were only handed out to inmates who went out of the facility.

Kim Woo-joo, a professor of infectious diseases at Korea University Guro Hospital said, “Last year, we already saw several cases where the staff or inmates in correctional facilities were infected,” and pointed out, “The justice ministry should have conducted diagnostic tests and sent out guidelines to prevent contagion making it mandatory for people to wear masks, check for fevers, and monitor inmates for any signs of respiratory symptoms in all correctional facilities, but it failed to do so.”

There were also problems in the government’s response to the outbreak in the detention center. Authorities at the correctional facility began putting inmates in quarantine by putting those who were COVID-19-positive in one room and those not infected by the virus in another. Hundreds of inmates with symptoms had to wait for hours in the auditorium. Jeong Hyeong-jun, head of policy at the Korean Federation of Medical Activist Groups for Health Rights said, “Outside the detention center, a person who comes in close contact with a patient has to remain in home quarantine for a couple of weeks and look for any signs of symptoms even if he tests negative for the virus, but it was surprising how the authorities inside the correctional facility implemented quarantine in a different manner.”

The justice ministry is sending inmates who tested negative for the virus to other correctional facilities in order to lower the density at the Dongbu Detention Center. The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters designated the Dongbu Detention Center as a living treatment center and deployed medical staff to look after the COVID-19 patients who are asymptomatic or who only have light symptoms remaining in the center. The government assigned inmates classified as close contacts to single rooms inside the center to block further contagion. Woo Suk-kyun, co-chair of the Association of Physicians for Humanism said, “People inside the Dongbu Detention Center should all be regarded as close contacts, and be quarantined in single rooms at living treatment centers. Relocating them to other detention centers poses too great a risk of contagion.”

The government was irresponsible in follow-up measures as well. Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae apologized for the first time only on January 1, fifteen days after the government confirmed a massive cluster of transmissions in the first test of all inmates. This day, Lawyers for a Democratic Society and the Catholic Human Rights Committee sent a public list of questions to the justice ministry asking about the existence of guidelines to prevent contagion in correctional facilities.