ABSTRACT
Recent statistics of Coronavirus diseases in Korea are studied with respect to many other countries. It is found that as of 8 February 2021, Korea has recorded 15.8 patients per 10,000 people, and this is used to calculate ratio to compare with other countries. On average, the number of Coronavirus patients in the world is 136.2 that is 8.6 times more than in Korea. The number of Covid-19 patients recorded in Korea is relatively smaller than other countries. There was no clear evidence on the atmospheric transport of Coronaviruses over 1 km to cause infection to other people. The infection of Coronaviruses appeared to occur mainly by close contact with an infected person or by airborne droplets in confined indoor environments, as noted earlier (Lancet, Respir Med 8(12):1159, 2020). To reduce the transmission of Coronavirus and related infections, the wearing of a pollution filter (mask) covering the nose and mouth is mandatory for Coronavirus patients. For the general public, however, we have invented a filter which covers only the nose. When there is no need for conversation and deep breathing, the nose band would be sufficient to filter out Coronavirus and air pollutants. Meanwhile, air and sea port activities including ground transport continued and strict policy on people mingle was not tightly enforced, and control measures to reduce infection were not so effective. However, it is believed that consuming fermented Korean spicy Kimchee and hot peppery soup plus warm rice tea helps in washing Coronaviruses around the throat deep down to the stomach. We find that cleansing the mouth and throat deeply including pathway is better than doing shallow gargling. A possible mechanism for cleansing the mouth and throat of Coronaviruses is here explored. This could have contributed to the relatively small number of Coronavirus patients observed in Korea.
ABSTRACT
The pandemic of Coronavirus diseases occurred in the Republic of Korea from 19 January 2020. By March 2020, Korea had reported the second largest number of Coronavirus patients in the world. On the anniversary date (2021), however, with a 51.3 M population, Korea has had 73.115 K patients with 1.283 K deaths, and this stands at 86th in the world. On average, Korea has 14.3 patients per 10,000 people. Air-parcel trajectory analysis and airflows show that in the general westerly region, air parcels and pollutants could flow out and in all directions. This suggests initially that Coronaviruses from source areas in China could transmit to many sink regions and sectors including 228 subdivided counties in Korea. However, there were only relatively small numbers of Coronavirus patients in western sea sides of the Korean Peninsula in comparison with large numbers of Coronavirus disease patients in cities and in eastern sides. In particular, three counties in Korea, including Ong-jin, Mooju and Chang-heung, have zero patients of Coronavirus diseases. This suggests that a long-distance transmission of Coronavirus from Wuhan and other infected cities in China to western Korea likely did not occur. Moreover, there was no evidence on the potential transmission of Coronavirus from neighboring large cities to the above-mentioned isolated counties in Korea which are only 10 ~ 50 km away. In the biosphere, during the transmission stage, the inactivation of Coronavirus by UV rays appeared to occur effectively in 30 ~ 120 min, in agreement with the result of satellite and modeling studies. In turn, the air transmission of Coronaviruses and pollution from China and neighboring cities in Korea apparently had no impact to cause Coronavirus diseases at the 228 counties in Korea. The infection and spreading of Coronavirus diseases to other people in Korea mainly appeared to occur in confined indoor air environments. With the absence and lack of UV rays in indoor environments, Coronaviruses would be active there for hours or days longer than in the outdoor environments.