A woman in Korea infected 27 people in a Starbucks which prompted fears of a second wave within the region. Unlike much of the west, Korea (and other nations in the east) are very comfortable wearing masks and consider it a norm.
However, there are some important takeaways from this worth noting.
First, masks apparently work. None of the masked employees got infected but many of the customers who had to remove their masks to eat and drink did get infected. This is obviously less than 100% protection but it is showing some efficacy.
Secondly, indoor spaces as suspected are an ideal scenario for spreading the virus. Especially with high occupancy. This would be most likely due to the aerosol or fine droplet spread going beyond the 6ft social distancing measures in place. We've seen this over and over that when the density of people is high and the duration of exposure is long, then this type of transmission is much more likely. What sort of density increases this likelihood? Think Starbucks, restaurant or call centre with similar seating density. Another thing to note is the ventilation systems which move the air around the room instead of just pumping old air out, and new air in.
Six feet does not guarantee safety.
The good news is, with larger spaces and lower density spacing akin to large retail stores, this kind of infection remains rare.
So where does this put Korea in terms of handling the COVID outbreak?
Over the last four months, they've been dealing with tiny local outbreaks scattered around, with roughly 50 cases per day nationwide. That's excellent. But in the last two weeks, they've had an outbreak including the 20+ in one Starbucks, apparently near a peak now at 300 per day.
I expect South Korea to handle this well. They've issued a mandatory mask order for Seoul now, and their contact tracing system is among the best on the planet. (And yes, they've kept their low baseline without a national mask order, that's what contact tracing can do!)