South Korean authorities recognized coronavirus infection at work as an occupational accident for the first time Friday.
The state-run Korea Workers’ Compensation & Welfare Service said it has endorsed the compensation request by a worker who contracted COVID-19 while working at a call center in southern Seoul, where cluster infections occurred last month.
“Considering the person was repeatedly exposed to the risk of infection, such as droplets, due to the nature of the person’s work in a dense space, we judged that there is a significant causal relationship between the work and illness,” the agency said.