COVER AN OUTSIDE EVENT

Corona virus, which is an infection disease firstly emerging in China, has turned out to be more serious as its outbreak over 204 countries, areas and territories. The repercussion of pandemic has pressed in many fields of economic and society, it also resulted in pressure onto diplomatic relations among countries, and there is no exception between Vietnam and Korea.
At the beginning of March 2020, the number of infected patients was seriously increasing to a thousand people so Vietnam nationals were afraid of the onslaught of epidemic and started returning Vietnam uncontrollably. Before deciding to go to the airports, people had to face up with dilemma that they either keep stable and fight against outbreak regardless of danger or return home and submit visa again when situation will have been controlled. However, Vietnamese have difficult in submitting entry visa as Korea has tightened visa rules upon both oversea students and labor, so there is no impossible that they could not enter Korea once more. My Hanh, a Vietnamese student in Myongji University, told that she had registered studying maintenance and would have been in Vietnam soon. “I am coming back in the next semester although submitting visa is more and more difficult. I do not want my parents to be worried about me and I made this decision.”
On the other hands Korea government send three emergency response teams to assist citizens who were quarantined or wanted to return home but had faced consular problems. Because Vietnam suspended the visa-free program for Korean nationals on Feb 29th and halted flights to Korea from March 5th to April. Therefore civil aviation is estimated to lose millions of dollars and there is no doubt of damages in tourist as Korea is Vietnam’s second largest tourism market behind China. Before that, 18 of 20 Korean travelers, who had entered Vietnam on Feb 24th and refused to be quarantined, were taken back to Korea at night Feb 25th. No sooner had they arrived at airport than they complained that Vietnam authorities had offered them little piece of “banh mi” (a famous traditional Vietnamese food) and forced them to live in an unappreciated rest-house in the evening of Feb 24th. Meanwhile they were actually offered bunches of “banh mi” and Korean food with no fee. This misinformation was transformed by YTN news, which caused a huge anger for Vietnamese and Korean too, so there were many apologies posted on Twitter for Vietnam.
Meanwhile the return of nationals is under control, around 1000 of experts and engineers of Samsung Electronics who are coming to Vietnam will be isolated as a preventive measure. "If experts and engineers of Samsung Electronics enter Vietnam are placed in quarantine for 14 days, this giant can suffer great damage," Ambassador Park Noh-wan told reporters in Hanoi Friday. There would cause a lot of damages in finance as Samsung Electronics is the largest foreign investor employing around 160,000 labors. In addition, there are not enough manufacture elements that come from Korea and textile or electronic products are unable to be exported because of domestic disorder in Korea. If the widespread of Corona virus is not dominated, there will be more unpredictable heavy losses since Korea is one of Vietnam’s biggest trade partners and investors.
From April 1st Vietnam government has started a nationwide curfew that would last 15 days meanwhile Korea has implemented entry restrictions and supported essential items for those who are in quarantine at home. There is a hope that this novel infection will be eradicated as soon as possible so that we could come back to daily life earlier.