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We're still waiting to see what will happen with the Gangnam brothel, but either way this incident is an important lesson in how wealth, power, and corruption actively hurt public health, which is not unique to Korea. #유흥업소 #성매매소 (1/17) https://twitter.com/yunginchae/status/1247469557167448064
(I waver on what the best translation of 유흥업소/룸살롱 is: "bar" or "nightclub" obfuscate important details, while "room salon" is obscure. Sex club, maybe? Anyway, it's a place where men pay women for sexual services.) (2/17)
In Korea, there are "10%" brothels, where the women are of such high quality that the owners take only 10% commission. ㅋㅋ&트렌드, the brothel in question, is a cut below at "15%," but that still means the clients are celebrities, athletes, and politicians. (3/17)
Remember the uproar about celebrities having access to tests when even medical staff don't? It's like that problem in reverse: if you have enough wealth and power, you can *avoid* protocol as well. And the people in charge will help you do so. (4/17)
This is a huge fucking problem for a coronavirus response that relies on cooperation and transparency. I've already outlined in this thread the reasons why the usual methods won't work as well here. (5/17) https://twitter.com/yunginchae/status/1247409797369974784
The investigation thus far does not make me more optimistic. First of all, while the mayor addressed the incident yesterday, gov't+media have been pretty quiet--which is not how they treated Shincheonji or the mother and daughter who went to Jeju. (6/17)
The coverage that *is* happening focuses on the K-pop singer (he's relatively old+unknown and I suspect that he's mostly a red herring to distract people from the other more high-profile clients) and the female sex worker, whom ㅋㅋ&트렌드 is trying to throw under the bus. (7/17)
Also, ㅋㅋ&트렌드 conveniently does not keep CCTV footage, so authorities have to rely on their ledger+voluntary testing from clients. They're *considering* using CCTV footage from nearby buildings and mobile phone data. (8/17)
https://newsis.com/view/?id=NISX20200409_0000988583&cID=14001&pID=14000 https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20200409093100004?input=1195m
https://newsis.com/view/?id=NISX20200409_0000988583&cID=14001&pID=14000 https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20200409093100004?input=1195m
More convenience! The only people who have tested positive so far are the K-pop singer, the sex worker, and her roommate. 75 of the 117 people they came in contact with have received test results, and they're all negative. (9/17)
This is not implausible for a country with a 2.2% positive test rate...but considering how contagious this virus is and how much contact (*cough*) there is at these places, it's at least very, very lucky. (10/17)
The Gangnam district chief (a politician from the liberal party beholden to a rich and conservative constituency, an awkward combo) has been lying low. Previously, he got in trouble for describing the mother+daughter who went to Jeju as "victims of good will." (11/17)
Some convenience in the Gangnam office too. Their practice is to reveal the routes of patients starting from the day before the first symptoms. The sex worker experienced symptoms on 3/29, so her shift at the brothel (3/26-27) did not qualify as public info by a day. (12/17)
It's also interesting that Gangnam recorded an unprecedented jump in quarantined patients (+668, no other day comes even close to that) in the period that the sex worker was tested (4/1) and received results (4/2) after working in a brothel with 500+ customers a night. (13/17)
Granted, they reported the quarantined patients (10 AM) before they recorded the confirmed patients (6 PM), but as we've seen all over the world, records+timelines are messy. What this mostly does is make me skeptical of the info. (14/17)
Look, it's too soon to tell, but it's possible that we did get very, very lucky. Even so, we're not going to keep lucking out for the next year and a half. (15/17)
As long as some people are above the law, they+the systems that enable them are a threat to public health. As long as there are massive inequalities in wealth and power, even the best public policy has its limits. (16/17)
Finally, to the men who are at a loss now that the brothels have suspended operations, may I gently suggest that you go fuck yourself (17/17)
