South Koreans Spend 2 Hours a Day Searching for Coronavirus Info

A survey has found that South Koreans spent an average of 2 hours a day searching for information on the coronavirus in March.

Yonhap News Agency reports that two professors from Seoul's Yonsei University surveyed 2,035 people living in Seoul from March 14-21, including 18 people in self-quarantine. Those in self-quarantine spent an average of 2.3 hours a day looking for information on the virus.

South Korea reported its first case of the coronavirus on January 20. There were still just 28 cases by February 14, but the number had soared to 8,086 by March 14, the day the survey began.

One of the survey professors, June Sun-jae, said that people should not spend too much time searching for information on the virus because it could increase anxiety. The survey found that almost 60% of the people had feelings of depression, compared to 7.7% in 2013.

Writing in Yonsei Medical Journal, Sun Jae Jung of Harvard and Jin Yong Jun of South Korea's National Institute of Health agree that reading too much news can increase anxiety, and they also worry about fake news being spread about the virus.

They also note that quarantine can be linked to stress, depression and other mental health problems. They say that while several government agencies in South Korea have created guidelines to help people with their mental health, there must also be a public effort to avoid stigmatizing those with the virus, since people are already feeling isolated by being unable to work or go to school.

South Korea has been working to identify people with the virus and quarantine anyone they came in contact with. The number of new cases of coronavirus in South Korea began to slow by the middle of March, and there were a total of 10,564 cases by April 14, with more than 7,500 recovered. More than 500,000 people in the country have been tested for the virus.

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