Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Koreans Urged by Government Not to Travel for Lunar New Years

South Korea is currently battling its largest outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease.  It has the farming industry and the government in a panic.  Korea was in the headlines last week for choosing to bury 1.4 million pigs alive in the hopes that they could contain the outbreak.

Foot and Mouth Disease is a severe plague for animal farming and can easily be spread by humans farm-to-farm that come into contact with farming equipment, vehicles, clothing or feed.

Each year the Chinese Lunar New Years celebration is the largest annual mass migration of people on the planet.  People living in big cities return to their ancestral farming villages for feasting and festivals.  The Korean government is concerned that all these people mixing between farming villages and cities will further spread the epidemic amongst the farm animal population.

AFP:
SEOUL — Officials in South Korea's southern regions have urged people not to return to home towns there for the Lunar New Year holiday for fear of spreading the nation's worst outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
Millions customarily travel to home towns to celebrate with their families the major traditional holiday, which falls this year on February 2-4.
But southern regions that have largely been spared the outbreak said the holiday may be a critical point in preventing a nationwide epidemic.
Lee Hong-Ki, mayor of the southeastern county of Geochang, appealed to President Lee Myung-Bak to persuade people not to travel to or from regions unaffected by the disease.
Other regional governments including those for South Jeolla and South Gyeongsang provinces also advised people not to travel but to call relatives instead.
"We understand people miss families around this time of year, but this is like a battle situation where everyone's cooperation is critical," a South Gyeongsang provincial spokesman told AFP.
"Family reunions can wait until the outbreak is over."
Authorities have ordered the culling of about two million livestock, 15 percent of the nation's cattle and pigs, to contain the outbreak that started last November.
Foot-and-mouth disease affects cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, pigs, deer, goats and sheep.
For some reason I am uncertain if a government plea to not travel would stop most Koreans.  People like routine here and they already never take holidays.  It would be a tough sell to convince people not to return home to their villages for the most important holiday of the year.

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