Korean coffee shops adopting protective measures

There’s a popular website that pokes fun at Starbucks’ army of barista magical ability to get people’s names wrong. But that little bit of personal interaction is something conducted around the world in coffee shops and cafes, be it a simple question, up sell or positive passing comments. It’s something that we take for granted, whether we like it or not.

But that little conversation, no matter how small, isn’t happening in South Korea. The coffee shops remain open, customers come and go, but everybody is strangely silent. It’s as if everybody is an auto-pilot.

The truth is that baristas and service staff in the catering and hospitality have been told to wear protective clothing and facewear and keep conversations to a minimum amid fears of the potential of widespread outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), a serious and sometimes fatal viral infection.

“Service comes first, and we want to promise the customers that we are not going to spread germs to the people who come to eat here,” said one unnamed worker in the Korean capital of Seoul.

“We have been told to cover our faces and refrain from talking…because everyone is scared of the spread of MERS.”

But this practise isn’t just limited to Seoul: All 770 branches of Starbucks in the country have implemented a brand new policy in a bid to combat fears.

One Starbucks employee is as quoted as telling the Korean Times that “everyone in the café has been ordered to follow ‘these’ regulations.” The newspaper also reports that everybody has been given instructions on how to make the air quality better.

It’s a similar story up and down the country; Coffee Bay is handing out masks to both employees and customers in a bid to quell safety fears and that demand is outstripping supply in certain parts of the country.

From afar, it all seems quite a bizarre situation. But the reality is quite serious.

Over 100 MERS cases have been reported in South Korea and nearly 3,000 people have been placed under quarantine as a result of the outbreak. According to the latest available data, there have been nine fatalities.

Compared to other countries where the infection is present, the mortality rate is quite low. But what has put officials on high alert is the number of cases. 108 might not seem like a lot, but South Korea has the second highest rates of infection in the world.

MERS is caused by the MERS-coronavirus and is similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which was responsible for 774 deaths (near 10% mortality rate) during an eight month outbreak in southern China between 2003 and 2004.