“Physically apart, emotionally together” was the Korean government’s slogan for this Chuseok. On the biggest Korean holiday of the year, citizens were advised to replace family gatherings with phone calls and gifts instead. Especially since Korea has recently seen a second big outbreak centered in Seoul, which holds almost 20 percent of the country’s population, travelling between regions was discouraged. As a result, the number of inter-region railway passengers decreased by 55 percent compared to last year, according to the Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL). However, is this figure good enough?

Quite frankly, no. 55 is not a good enough figure. It took one patient from the Shincheonji Church to turn Daegu upside-down. A whole mall could close down because of a single visitor, and restaurants could lose weeks’ worth of customers for being labeled as a place visited by a confirmed case. KAIST also instructs students to self-isolate for two weeks outside of school premises should their paths cross with a patient. A person spreading the virus to others may be the worst-case scenario, but even without additional infections, they can cause numerous problems in the local community. It is easy to think that adding one more person to the massive number of holiday travellers cannot possibly do so much harm. However, inter-region travelling multiplies the number of affected people, and it may snowball into something far beyond a local problem. Besides, it seems extremely unfair for the other half of the population that decided to stay home, as they too would have to suffer the potential consequences brought by the travellers.

In particular, we must pay attention to who we are possibly bringing the virus to. Chuseok and other end-of-year holidays that will follow are all about family, where multiple generations get together. The younger generations that are economically active or attend schools have higher possibilities of crossing paths with a COVID carrier, while the elders are the ones who are more likely to suffer the most devastating effects of the virus if they were to be infected. You get the idea. As much as we love and miss our family, making all the possible effort to keep them safe is the best way to show our love.

No, we cannot stay indoors forever. Within the nine or so months since the term “social distancing” was first introduced, I am guilty of having attended social gatherings myself. At one point, we were even encouraged to eat out in order to keep the local economy alive, because life must go on. But the point is to at least pay attention to especially risky times, and this was one of them. We’re not being asked to not travel forever. We’re talking about just those few days of the year when the number of inter-region travellers spike — where we may not be able to track just how many people a single carrier came into contact with.

As we approach the end of the year, holidays like Chuseok will follow all around the world. It will soon be Thanksgiving in the US, and then Christmas and New Year’s will be just around the corner. It is not easy to resist the temptations of what should be the most festive time of the year, filled with get-togethers, family time, and parties. But it is times like these where we should especially be on guard. Keeping our loved ones safe and ending this pandemic era as soon as possible should be our top priority for now, and this has to be a joint effort. How do we want Chuseok and Christmas to look like in 2021? It’s all up to the decisions we make now.