This file photo taken on March 8, 2021, shows an industrial design practice class under way at a university in Daegu, southeastern South Korea. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 22 (Korea Bizwire) — The fast spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19 has led to daily infections of more than 100,000 people, but it has barely changed the everyday lives of office workers and college students.
Many public institutions and private businesses have made few or no changes to their current work-at-home policies in response to the omicron spread.
“There were no changes since the company instructed 30 percent of the staff to work from home early this year, not even in the previous week,” said a 30-year-old public employee surnamed Kim.
“I don’t believe working from home would curtail the spread, so I guess there isn’t much we can do.”
Many work-from-home policies implemented by companies haven’t been responding to the rise in the number of infections or changes in social distancing rules. Experts aren’t expecting any changes soon.
Colleges, too, are carrying on with their online/offline lecture policy without making any changes.
Seoul National University plans to continue its policy of offline lectures unless decided otherwise by faculty-student agreement.
Online lectures should be given in real-time with live Q&A sessions and discussions being a requirement.
Yonsei University also plans to make no changes to its original policy of giving the faculty full discretion on giving online, offline, or hybrid lectures.
“It is easier to concentrate during offline lectures, of course, but I’m worried about how things would turn out if a student gets infected,” said Hwang Ji-won, a 22-year-old student at Korea University.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
