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National museums and libraries to re-open in South Korea

National museums and libraries to re-open in South Korea

Posted May. 02, 2020 08:06,   

Updated May. 02, 2020 08:06

한국어

National museums, art museums, and libraries will re-open limitedly from May 6 in South Korea. As the country’s social distancing policy comes to an end on May 5, indoor public facilities will open again, following outdoor facilities, such as recreational forests. It has been 71 days since their closure due to COVID-19.

According to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters on Friday, 24 national museums, art museums, and libraries across South Korea will be open limitedly from May 6. Such facilities have been closed as the South Korean government raised the contagious disease alert level to “serious” on February 23.

Such indoor public facilities will be only open to individual visitors, not to group visitors, and limit the number of visitors to avoid crowdedness, the government announced. The opening of other public and private facilities is up to the discretion of them in accordance with the announced measures.

The South Korean government is reviewing transition to “social distancing as lifestyle” from May 6, instead of extending the current stricter social distancing policy. “We will discuss resuming the operation of indoor public facilities from next week with the premise of implementing the ‘social distancing as lifestyle’ rules,” Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said during a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters.


Mee-Jee Lee image@donga.com