A driver picks up textbooks for his child in his car from a teacher at Yeongcheon Middle School in Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang Province, on March 19, 2020, amid the spread of the new coronavirus. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 20 (Korea Bizwire) — As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread, more people are shunning direct contact with others.
In turn, drive-through services where people can purchase goods and services from their own cars is gaining popularity.
Pohang Jecheol Middle School, located in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, distributed school materials to families of incoming students using a drive-through system from Wednesday to Friday.
Homeroom teachers, for instance, would prepare all 14 textbook packages in a bag and deliver them to parents who drove their cars to school.
Parents welcomed the drive-through idea since they were able to receive the textbooks while minimizing physical contact.
The Gyeongsangbuk-do Office of Education asked all schools to distribute school materials through parcel delivery, drive-throughs, or other means available at each school.
Jeju Jeil Middle School also used a drive-through system to distribute school books on Thursday to prevent further spread of the coronavirus.
A driver picks up his order inside a car from an employee at Lotte Department Store in Gwangju, 329 kilometers south of Seoul on March 19, 2020, amid the spread of the new coronavirus. (Yonhap)
Drive-through systems are spreading across the nation after they were first used at outdoor medical clinics when the coronavirus broke out.
Drive-through clinics can complete the necessary steps to test for the coronavirus in just 10 minutes. Pohang Medical Center and other hospitals across the country have implemented drive-through systems.
South Korea’s drive-through testing is being lauded as a groundbreaking idea with foreign countries including the United States and Japan choosing to implement similar systems.
A local barbeque restaurant in Daegu also offers a drive-through service to customers making pre-orders.
The city of Pohang and the Pohang Fish Farmers Association opened up a drive-through service and sold 800 live fish fillet lunch boxes last Saturday and Sunday.
Libraries across the country including Cheongju City Library, located in North Chungcheong Province, and Busan Citizens Library are now offering drive-through book rental services.
Lotte Department Store in the southwestern city of Gwangju introduced a so-called ‘drive-pick’ service, where customers pre-order goods on a smartphone application and pick them up at the store’s parking lounge.
D. M. Park (dmpark@koreabizwire.com)
