[Cheonji Ilbo = Reporter Bo-young Hong] “Unlike the COVID-19 epidemic two years ago, I don't think the risk is high even if a large-scale rally is held.”

An 80,000-strong rally was held in Daegu. Some pointed out safety and quarantine issues, but it concluded without any safety incidents, and even in terms of quarantining, experts agree that large-scale gatherings are not dangerous in the current epidemic.

On the 20th, Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (Shincheonji Church of Jesus) hosted a graduation ceremony for 100,000 people at Daegu Stadium for about 3 hours. In light of concerns over safety issues for large-scale gatherings following the Itaewon tragedy, the organisers said that they made every effort to ensure safety.

Shincheonji Church of Jesus said, “Above all, in order to hold the graduation ceremony safely, we prepared with safety as the top priority for the first, second, and third stages, including order maintenance, operating a monitoring room with the police, fire department, Daegu City and Suseong District Office safety-related personnel at the site.”

In addition, “The church itself deployed a total of 14,000 security personnel to maintain order inside and outside the venue, and had them enter and exit over 4 hours to prevent crowding,” and also said, “Emergency rescue training was conducted for all safety personnel, and all trainees also watched the video about emergency rescue. This graduation ceremony emphasises the fact that safety was especially well taken care of.”

Thanks to these preparations, the event concluded without any safety incidents. The organisers are said to have made every effort to prevent quarantine. It is known that all participants in the event wore KF-94 masks and did not remove their masks at any point from the beginning of the event until the end.

Experts also diagnosed that the risk of large-scale outdoor gatherings is not high in the current COVID-19 climate.

Jae-hun Jeong, professor of preventive medicine at Gachon University Gil Hospital, said, “The current COVID-19 situation is different from two years ago. There have been many large-scale events recently, but it is difficult to say that there is an increased spread with these events.”

“Certainly, if precautions are taken as directed by health authorities (social distancing, etc.), it falls within the scope of being low risk,” he added.

Joong-sik Eom, head of department of infectious medicine at Gachon University Gil Medical Center, said that the risk of transmission from indoor events could vary depending on whether or not masks were worn, the time of the gathering, and the local epidemic situation, but in the case of outdoor events, he said, “I think the risk is very low.”

https://www.newscj.com/article/20221121580258