Eastern Detention Center, a structure that becomes one at the moment of opening a window in North Island. Illustration = Reporter Hoe-ryong Kim [email protected]
– Inmates revealed that a non-infected person who was diagnosed negative as a result of the new coronavirus infection (Corona 19) in Seoul’s eastern detention center was forced to detain a non-infected person in the positive test room for 4 hours by mistake. It is said that this detainee eventually became a confirmed case four days later. Since November 27, when the first confirmed person was released, testimonies from internal inmates and medical staff have been pouring out that it was a total quarantine failure, such as having to use indoor playgrounds and bathhouses together because close contact and general prisoners were not isolated or separated. As a single facility in Korea, it is evaluated that the’corona disaster in the eastern detention center’, which caused more than 1,000 infected people, was a’human resource’.
[한 달 1000명…동부구치소 코로나 재앙 실태]
“People with positive infection, contact person, uninfected person mix one shot”
Inmates·Medical Staff “Disappearance of quarantine regulations, absurd response”
Ministry of Justice repeats “It’s just false claims from prisoners”
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The first employee of Dongbu detention center was infected with 1062 confirmed cases in 36 days.
– According to the Ministry of Justice on the 3rd, the number of confirmed corona19 at the Eastern Detention Center as of 8 a.m. on the 3rd was added 121 people as a result of the 5th total inspection, recording a cumulative 1062. There were 1040 prisoners (including prisoners) and 22 employees. A total of 1083 people were confirmed, including 21 infected families and acquaintances of the Dongbu detention center who were missing from the Ministry of Justice. The first confirmed cases exceeded 1,000 in about a month.
Infection is spreading rapidly to other correctional facilities besides the eastern detention center. 28 prisoners and 18 employees in five facilities, including one Seoul detention center and 19 Gwangju prison, were infected.
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How did the Eastern detention center corona disaster spread? Graphic = Reporter Cha Junhong [email protected]
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Testimony of prisoners “I was locked in a room for a positive prisoner for 4 hours”
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The screams of the prisoners of the Eastern Detention Center. Graphic = Reporter Kim Young-ok [email protected]
– Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae explained on the 1st that “we are strictly separating and accepting the consent of the confirmed, close contact, and non-confirmed”, but the testimony of the inmates was 180 degrees different.
Inmate A, who was originally tested negative, revealed that he became a confirmed case within four days after being trapped in the confirmed room for four hours due to an employee’s classification mistake. In a letter to an acquaintance on the 22nd of last month, Mr. A said, “I was trapped in a room with positive patients for about 4 hours due to an employee’s mistake while classifying people on the 7th and 8th floor in the early morning of Saturday 19th.” However, it wasn’t until 3 a.m. that I confirmed that it was a negative patient and changed the room,” he explained. Mr. A’s acquaintance told the JoongAng Ilbo on the 3rd, “Mr. A was finally tested positive in the second full test on the 23rd of the same month and was transferred to another prison.”
There is another similar case. In a letter sent to his girlfriend, prisoner B said, “On the night of December 24th, a person in the same room was confirmed, and the staff in protective clothing took it out.” “Even if I asked what the remaining 7 people were doing, they were left in a narrow space without answer.” Told. Mr. B was also confirmed to be confirmed at the 4th total inspection on the 30th of last month.
![Part of a letter sent by Mr. B, a prisoner of the Eastern Detention Center, to his girlfriend on the 25th of last month. The letter says that the confirmed person came out of the room, but all the remaining 7 people were left unattended. [사진=독자제공]](https://i0.wp.com/pds.joins.com/news/component/htmlphoto_mmdata/202101/04/e52c685d-21b2-4f91-b1f3-d10ef770a153.jpg?w=900&ssl=1)
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Part of a letter sent by Mr. B, a prisoner of the Eastern Detention Center, to his girlfriend on the 25th of last month. The letter says that the confirmed person came out of the room, but all the remaining 7 people were left unattended. [사진=독자제공]
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“Collect 200 close contacts in the auditorium and mix with the general audience”
– In the eastern detention center, an employee who was infected with a daughter on November 27 last year was the first confirmed person. As a result of conducting a diagnostic test centered on contacts until the 12th of last month, 11 additional employees were confirmed. On the 14th of last month, the first confirmed person among prisoners came out. However, the Ministry of Justice conducted a full examination on all prisoners only on December 18, three weeks after the first infected person came out, and later confirmed the status of the group infection.
According to a letter sent by prisoner C to his sister on November 28, the day after the employee’s first infection, the quarantine principle was not followed. Mr. C said, “People who have overlapped movements with suspected coronavirus patients are allowed to share playgrounds and baths by general prisoners,” he said. “I filled the contact room with three other general prisoners.”
In a letter on the 28th of last month, Mr. D also said, “At 10:30 on the last Saturday night, I suddenly asked them to pack up, and they gathered more than 200 people in the auditorium and let them sit until 3 a.m. and then mixed all the people and shoved it into another building.” “200 people were people who were in the same room as the confirmed person or close contact,” he said. He added, “I keep getting sick with a fever of 38.5 degrees, so I’m in tears.”
![It is said that it arrived on the 28th of last month as part of a letter sent by Mr. D, a prisoner of the Eastern Detention Center, to an acquaintance. In the letter, about 200 people were gathered in the auditorium, and the contents were complaining that they were treated as livestock. [사진=독자제공]](https://i0.wp.com/pds.joins.com/news/component/htmlphoto_mmdata/202101/04/fc6ccc43-2aae-4e1f-976b-342370f94fd0.jpg?w=900&ssl=1)
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It is said that it arrived on the 28th of last month as part of a letter sent by Mr. D, a prisoner of the Eastern Detention Center, to an acquaintance. In the letter, about 200 people were gathered in the auditorium, and the contents were complaining that they were treated as livestock. [사진=독자제공]
– Some argued that human rights violations were significant, such as not notifying prisoners of the test results. An acquaintance of one detainee said, “The boyfriend who was transferred to the southern detention center on the 23rd of last month did not say whether it was positive or negative after the corona test,” and said, “For two days after being transferred, six people stayed together in one room, of which 2 “People have tested positive,” he said.
Treatment for confirmed patients is not being performed properly. In a letter, Mr. A said, “When I was mixed with positive patients, when I talked, I was confirmed with Corona 19, and I was sick for a week, so I didn’t get one.” The prisoner B’s girlfriend said, “It says that treatment is not working properly, but I’m crazy.”
The Justice Department dismissed the inmate’s claim as “mostly false.” An official from the Ministry of Justice refuted, “It is impossible to put a negative tester in the positive test room, and it seems that the case of positive test was distorted during the delivery process.” As for other suspicions, he said, “It is only the claims of the prisoners and cannot be confirmed.”
Expert “Now, we need to quarantine non-infected people’one person, one room’ to prevent further infection”
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Prime Minister Jeong Sye-gyun is moving to the central control office with Justice Minister Chu Mi-ae and others visiting the Seoul East Detention Center in Songpa-gu, where a new coronavirus infection (Corona 19) occurred as a group. yunhap news
– One incumbent orthodontic medical staff who requested anonymity saw the situation where the opinions of the medical staff were not reflected as the most problematic. He pointed out, “Because medical staff opinions are not reflected, quarantine management or additional infection control is still not at all,” he said. “The biggest problem is that there is no doctor at the correctional headquarters of the Ministry of Justice, which is a quarantine control tower.”
It is said that anxiety is spreading among the guards. Lee Mo, a former prison guard who worked at the Eastern Detention Center, said, “There is no safe zone because of the internal structure of prisoners’ rooms lined up from 1m next to the employee’s office.” “I have to be hospitalized,” he said.
Kim Woo-joo, a professor of infectious medicine at Daegu Guro Hospital, said, “The vice minister, the minister, and the prime minister visited the eastern detention center and sent out a press release, but there was no practical action to block the spread.” “We need to prevent further spread of the sun.”
Reporters Kang Kwang-woo and Chae Hye-seon [email protected]
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