서울시, 이태원 클럽 방문자 5500명 연락 시도... 2천여명 '연락두절'

Authorities here are combing through digital traces such as mobile phone data, credit card statements and CCTV footage to identify the nearly 2-thousand who visited nightclubs at the center of one of Seoul's biggest COVID-19 clusters, but remain unaccounted for.
To encourage people to get tested, the 'anonymous testing' which the city of Seoul is offering could be expanded nationwide.
Oh Jung-hee reports.
With South Korea on high alert due to the Itaewon cluster infection, Seoul city is trying to contact almost 5,500 people who visited the five clubs from late April to early May.
But among those,... nearly 2-thousand people are proving hard to reach.
After obtaining a list of visitors, Seoul city government has spoken with roughly 2,400 over phone... and sent text messages to around 1,100 more.
The rest, nearly 2-thousand, couldn't be reached,... so Seoul City is trying to track them down using credit card transaction data, cell phone signals, and close-circuit television footage.
More than 8-thousand-5-hundred police officers are involved in the search.
The city wants those who visited the clubs to get themselves tested on their own.
If it's later discovered that they have not done so, they could be fined up to 1-thousand-6-hundred U.S. dollars.
But, for those who are concerned about privacy issues, health authorities are considering whether to implement 'anonymous testing' in regions other than Seoul.
"Seoul city has adopted a way of testing that doesn't collect any unnecessary information other than phone numbers. The government is currently discussing whether such 'anonymous testing' should be adopted by other municipal governments as well."
Meanwhile, the authorities have notified nearly 20-thousand people who visited the Itaewon area from April 24th to May 6th to get tested.
The tests provided will be free-of-charge.
Oh Jung-hee, Arirang News.