The Wall Street Journal - 07.04.2020

A10| Tuesday, April 7, 2020 ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

suggests a lengthy path back

to normalcy for the U.S., Eu-

rope and other regions where

the Covid-19 pandemic’s worst

days have yet to pass.

The Seoul government has

earmarked emergency funds

and aid of at least $80 billion.

But little has yet to trickle

down due to bureaucracy and

the decision to prioritize ini-

tial spending on tamping

down the pathogen. South Ko-

rea has about 10,000 con-

firmed virus patients but has

seen a steep drop-off of new

cases in recent weeks.

“The best antivirus mea-

sures will be the best eco-

nomic policies,” South Korean

Prime Minister Chung Sye-

kyun said recently. “Because

without proper containment

we can’t go into economic re-

covery.”

Yet with clusters of fresh

infections still popping up,

South Koreans remain on

edge.

South Korea, a country of

52 million people that is about

the geographic size of Indiana,

has a big economic advantage

over China and most of Eu-

rope and the U.S.: It never

turned to locking down cit-

ies—which can curb commerce

dramatically—and instead rec-

ommended that people work

from home and avoid large

gatherings.

The government also fo-

cused on widespread testing.

And it actively traced where

infected individuals had trav-

eled and imposed quarantines

for those who were near infec-

tion clusters.

Yet some of South Korea’s

early economic measures, like

offering subsidies to landlords

to lower rents and stipends to

working parents forced to take

unpaid leave, did little to stoke

spending.

Now South Korea, like the

U.S., is turning to one-time

payments, which will be of-

fered to more than two-thirds

of households based on in-

come. But those funds won’t

be released for weeks.

Another measure aimed at

accelerating the fiscal rollouts

is a newly created low-interest

loan program of roughly $

billion—and demand for it has

been high.

Mr. Seo, the bar owner,

closed his business in part so

his three workers could qual-

ify for government assistance

that is easier to access when

furloughed. He is frustrated

that his application for help in

paying his workers’ wages,

filed about a month ago,

hasn’t produced any funds.

“I’m just hoping this ends

soon,” Mr. Seo said.

THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

SEOUL—When the coronavi-
rus ripped across South Korea
in mid-February, bar owner
Seo Ji-won felt somewhat se-
cure. He had some savings,
didn’t have a family to feed
and ran a popular establish-
ment in a busy neighborhood.
Last week, Mr. Seo decided
to close his 10-table business,
called CTavern, for at least a
month. Emergency funds ear-
marked for small establish-
ments like his have yet to ma-
terialize. Even as South Korea’s
coronavirus pandemic has
eased, his bar remained nearly
empty. Sales plummeted 90%.
“I’m not going to reopen
until a rebound feels near,”
said Mr. Seo, who is going
without a paycheck.
Having turned the corner
on its coronavirus battle,
South Korea is confronting the
punishment delivered to its
economy. It is worse than ex-
pected, small-business owners
say, with no clear sense when
commerce will bounce back.
South Korea’s economic pa-
ralysis shows how elusive a
swift recovery might be even
after a public-health victory. It

BYANDREWJEONG

South Korea Recovers, but Economy Lags

Nation’s early actions

helped check outbreak,

but businesses will

suffer for quite a while

Seo Ji-won decided to close his CTavern bar and restaurant in Seoul after sales dropped 90%.

JEAN CHUNG FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

NewlyconfirmedcoronaviruscasesinSouthKorea,daily

Source: Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

900

0

150

300

450

600

750

February March April

LONDON—Weeks before

Prime Minister Boris Johnson

entered intensive care on Mon-

day evening suffering from se-

rious symptoms of the new

coronavirus, he gave the job of

steering the U.K. through the

economic and public-health

crisis triggered by the infec-

tion to Dominic Raab, the

country’s top diplomat.

Mr. Johnson was admitted

to an intensive-care unit at St.

Thomas’ Hospital in central

London and asked Mr. Raab,

the foreign secretary, to depu-

tize for him where necessary,

Downing Street said. Mr.

Johnson’s deterioration marks

the first instance of a national

leader having such a serious

case of Covid-19.

A relative newcomer to

power in the U.K., having been

a member of the topmost level

of government for less than

two years, Mr. Raab, 46 years

old, takes the reins at a time

of national emergency that

would test far more experi-

enced politicians.

The U.K. has shut down a

large part of its economy and

ordered citizens to stay indoors

in an attempt to slow the spread

of infection. The central chal-

lenge for the administration Mr.

Raab now leads, if Mr. Johnson

fails to make a swift recovery,

will be to judge when the crisis

is ebbing and economic and so-

cial restrictions can be eased.

BYJASONDOUGLAS

U.K. Foreign

Secretary

StepsInto

Handle Crisis

“It really depends on every-

one just accepting that that

person has the same author-

ity,” said Catherine Haddon, a

constitutional expert at the In-

stitute for Government.

In time, in a process that

could take months, the ruling

Conservative Party would

choose a new leader who

would become prime minister.

Mr. Raab led the cabinet’s

civil contingencies meeting in

Mr. Johnson’s stead on Mon-

day morning. The foreign sec-

retary also led an afternoon

news conference, where he re-

iterated that Mr. Johnson was

still running the country. How-

ever, Mr. Raab said he hadn’t

talked to the British leader

since Saturday.

On Monday evening, the

U.K.’s top civil servant, Mark

Sedwill, briefed the cabinet on

the prime minister’s worsen-

ing health by video link as Mr.

Johnson was shifted into in-

tensive care.

Politicians across the globe

on Monday offered their best

wishes for the prime minis-

ing some of the more

stringent clampdowns being

imposed across Europe in an

effort to minimize disruption.

The government’s pandemic

plan, which was crafted by sci-

entists over the past two de-

cades, played down the need

to shut schools and ban mass

gatherings, arguing they did

little to stop a virus’s spread.

Meanwhile, British epidemi-

ologists initially underesti-

mated how many people could

require intensive care if they

got ill, officials said. Worried

that the British public

wouldn’t isolate for weeks on

end, the government reasoned

it was better to wait until the

virus’s spread was accelerating

to impose a lockdown.

Even as evidence mounted

about the seriousness of the vi-

rus’s spread, Britain’s crowded

Parliament and the warren of

buildings around Downing

Street, where Mr. Johnson lives

and works, were humming with

people. “I am shaking hands

continuously,” Mr. Johnson said

at the start of March. “I was at

a hospital the other night

where there were actually a

few coronavirus patients and I

shook hands with everybody.”

Downing Street continued

to operate much as normal

with briefings in the state

room and meetings convened

around crowded tables in the

building’s drawing rooms.

On March 16, scientists ad-

vising the government con-

cluded that the clampdown

needed to be accelerated fol-

lowing a series of reports by

modelers showing the Na-

tional Health Service would

quickly be swamped.

Even after Mr. Johnson

locked down the country on

March 23, he continued to at-

tend cabinet in person. The

same week he fell ill Mr. John-

son attended a virtual cabinet

meeting, sitting with the

health secretary and the coun-

try’s most senior civil servant.

The virus then spread

through his top team. Mr.

Johnson’s chief of staff, Domi-

nic Cummings, and the coun-

try’s chief medical officer,

Chris Whitty, isolated them-

selves with symptoms. The

health secretary, Matt Han-

cock, subsequently fell ill.

Mr. Johnson’s pregnant fian-

cée, Carrie Symonds, said she

has also suffered symptoms.

Most of Mr. Johnson’s team is

back at work and Ms. Symonds

tweeted over the weekend that

she was feeling stronger. Mr.

Cummings isn’t back in Down-

ing Street yet but is working.

Mr. Johnson put on a brave

face once in isolation. He pub-

lished a series of videos in

which he said he had mild

symptoms. However, people

who were in contact with him

in the middle of last week ex-

pressed concern about his

well-being. Mr. Johnson con-

tinued to lead cabinet meet-

ings via video link in his study.

He also appeared outside his

door in Downing Street on

Thursday to join a nationwide

applause of National Health

Service workers. The govern-

ment insisted his symptoms

were still mild but admitted his

condition wasn’t improving.

By Friday, a pale-looking Mr.

Johnson told the nation via a

self-filmed video that he would

continue to isolate because of

a persistent fever. At 8 p.m. on

Sunday, as Queen Elizabeth II

addressed the nation imploring

people to follow social-distanc-

ing guidelines, he was driven

to a nearby hospital for tests.

—Jason Douglas

contributed to this article.

with critical policy decisions,
including how long to continue
restrictions on business and
other social-distancing mea-
sures that have shut swaths of
the economy.
Mr. Johnson, who was re-
cently elected on his promise to
deliver Britain’s divorce with
the European Union, has in-
stead found himself leading the
country’s fight against Covid-19,
the respiratory illness caused
by the coronavirus. Britain, like
several other Western nations,
is trying to come to terms with
a shortage of equipment for
protecting medical personnel
and testing for the disease.
Some doctors and epidemiolo-
gists have criticized Mr. John-
son for failing to move faster to
put the country into lockdown
after the virus arrived in the
U.K. at the end of January.
Adding to the complications,
if Mr. Johnson’s health contin-
ues to deteriorate, it could raise
a constitutional headache at a
crucial moment in the U.K.’s
battle against the virus. Britain
doesn’t have the equivalent of a
vice president who automati-
cally takes over if the prime
minister dies or is incapacitated.
Mr. Johnson eased the tran-
sition by deputizing Mr. Raab
before he sickened. But if Mr.
Raab becomes incapacitated, it
would be up to the members
of the U.K. cabinet to decide
among themselves who should
lead the country.

ContinuedfromPageOne

Johnson’s

Condition

Worsens

ter’s recovery. “Americans are

all praying for his recovery—

he’s been a very good friend,

something really special:

strong, resolute, doesn’t give

up,” President Trump said.

The number of confirmed

cases and deaths in the U.K.

has been climbing rapidly,

though data released on Mon-

day showed the number of new

cases falling from Sunday and

439 deaths related to Covid-

in the previous 24 hours, the

lowest daily figure in April.

But scientists said that fatali-

ties are a lagging indicator of

the spread of the pandemic.

The British government ini-

tially took a laissez-faire ap-

proach to the illness, eschew-

The U.K. government

first took a laissez-

faire approach to

the illness,

SHANGHAI—After some
two months hunkered down at
home to fight the coronavirus,
many Chinese people traveled
this weekend—for the annual
tomb-sweeping holiday—
boosting beleaguered hotels
and travel companies.
Travel bookings for the
three-day weekend were up
50% from the weekend before,
according to Trip.com, China’s
largest travel-services com-
pany, while hotel bookings in-
creased 60%. Fliggy, an online
travel service operated by Ali-
baba Group Holding, said train
reservations doubled and hotel
bookings rose 30%.
Railway passenger flow on
Saturday was the highest since
January’s Lunar New Year hol-
iday, and crowds Sunday
morning at Huangshan, a sce-
nic mountain in eastern China,
grew so large that authorities
had to stop people from enter-
ing the area.
“We are seeing signs of re-

covering now from the domes-

tic market in China,” said Jane

Sun, Trip.com’s chief execu-

tive. The company’s April tour

bookings are three times the

March number, a company

spokeswoman said.

The jump in travel will

come as a relief to China’s

economic managers. While the

National Bureau of Statistics

said last week that manufac-

turing activity had surged in

March after a brutal slowdown

in February, some economists

say consumer demand will be

much slower to recover.

The Tomb-Sweeping Day hol-

iday, traditionally a time to visit

the resting place of one’s ances-

tors, has also become an oppor-

tunity for a short vacation.

Many who did travel over

the three-day weekend favored

short trips to neighboring cities

or local beauty spots, according

to Trip.com. That reflects their

own caution and also travel re-

strictions still in force as the

government balances healing

the economy against prevent-

ing a second wave of infections.

“Most travelers in China re-

main cautious,” said Jacques

Penhirin, the head of Oliver

Wyman’s retail and consumer-

goods practice in China. Sixty

percent of the people surveyed

recently by the consulting firm

said they wouldn’t travel any-

where until at least a month

after China’s last Covid-19 pa-

tient had recovered. But in

good news for the travel sec-

tor, most respondents said

they expect to push ahead with

vacations planned for later in

the year, Mr. Penhirin said.

While individuals can travel

between provinces, several pro-

vincial governments have tem-

porarily barred travel compa-

nies from offering trips across

provincial boundaries.

And while thousands of tour-

ist attractions around the coun-

try have reopened, the Shanghai

government last week ordered

major attractions to reclose in a

sign of anxiety about acting too

boldly before the virus has been

completely suppressed.

BYTREFORMOSS

More Chinese Get a Move On

As Travel Curbs Are Eased

Hotel bookings and train travel have jumped in China. Wuhan was the epicenter of the outbreak.

ROMAN PILIPEY/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved to the intensive-

care unit of London’s St. Thomas’ Hospital on Monday.

ANDY RAIN/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK