Drive-thrus booming in S.Korea amid COVID-19 scare

Seoul, March 21 (IANS) Conducting business via drive-thrus, a process that allows people to purchase products without leaving their cars, were spreading acrossSouth Korea, following the success of the nation’s drive-thru coronavirus testing centres, a media report said on Saturday.

Schools and pubic libraries have adopted the method in the distribution of books, while restaurants and retailers were allowing their customers to pick up food or products while staying inside their vehicles, the Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency said in the report.

The report comes as South Korea, the worst-hit country in Asia after China which is the epicentre of the outbreak, recorded 8,799 confirmed coronavirus cases, while the death toll stood at 102 as of Saturday.

A number of coronavirus triage in South Korea have set up drive-thru style facilities, where medical staff lean through car windows to check drivers’ fevers and respiratory symptoms and take their samples in less than 10 minutes.

Taking a cue from the coronavirus clinics, a number of non-medical public institutions and private businesses here have also adopted the innovative drive-thru method.

Pohang Jecheol Middle School in Pohang, a North Gyeongsang province city hit hard by the pandemic, distributed textbooks for the spring semester to the parents of its students in a drive-thru earlier this week, said the Yonhap News Agency report.

At the request of the provincial educational office, many other secondary schools also handed out textbooks in a drive-thru system, drawing favourable responses from parents who want to avoid contact with others in waiting rooms.

In Daegu, which accounts for over two-thirds of South Korea’s confirmed coronavirus cases, a restaurant has drawn media attention for selling pork chops in a drive-thru method.

Its customers can order pork chops by phone before picking them up from inside their cars.

In Pohang, an association of regional fish farmers sold 800 sushi lunch box sets to residents and visitors in a drive-thru system last weekend.

A number of public libraries in Seoul, Busan, Ulsan, Cheongju and other cities have recently launched a service to lend books via a drive-thru system.

In most cases, citizens log into the library websites and select books to borrow before picking them up at the entrance of a library the following day.

The municipality of Changwon, southeastern South Korea, began a toy rental service based on the drive-thru system for its residents on Friday.

Its citizens can make a phone reservation for up to two toys and pick them up the following day while in their cars.

–IANS

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