Ouch! Korean doctor faces backlash after commenting adults who haven't caught COVID yet have no friends

Ouch! Nope, that's not me exclaiming because I'm getting my booster shot (already did that). It's my wincing reaction to a now-deleted Facebook post from Dr. Ma Sang-hyuk, vice president of the Korean Vaccine Society. “The adults who have not yet been infected with COVID-19 are those who have interpersonal problems,” read a Facebook post uploaded earlier this Month, reported The Korea Herald. The newspaper reported that Dr. Ma's opinion on COVID-19 is that the Korean government should be focused more on treating the disease than imposing social distancing measures. To be fair, earlier this week, Korea's count of confirmed cases over time hit 9.93 million, meaning about one in five people in the country have had it at some point, or have it now. But my home of Ontario has already surpassed that high proportion if the Science Table's estimate that at least one in four of those in the province have had COVID at some point is correct. Personally, I haven't caught COVID yet (I don't think) but I should hope not given the pretty extreme efforts I've made not to. I work from home, get my groceries delivered, don't have kids or their schooling to worry about and I've stayed entirely out of indoor dining, theatres and (no tears shed here) the gym. I am, of course, very privileged to have a lifestyle that allows me to even make these choices. Throughout the pandemic, I've felt a responsibility to keep myself out of a hospital ward—in no small part out of respect for those who must do their work in-person and could end up sick because of it. My friends run a gamut of professions from lawyers to bakers—you can guess which ones are getting sick. So instead, I've cultivated the social life of an Edwardian debutante: playing croquet in the park, skating on tiny ponds, sipping tea by an outdoor fire and taking an obscene number of strolls. I greatly miss many elements of my life before COVID, but I'm lucky to say that friends aren't one of them. And because of that, I can take a joke—even though (cringe) I don't think this doctor is joking. Martha Porado is managing editor for the Medical Post and Pharmacy Practice + Business.

Ouch! Korean doctor faces backlash after commenting adults who haven't caught COVID yet have no friends

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