In the Shadow of Freedom of Religion and Press

The Korean government’s public health responses to the COVID-19 epidemic have achieveda remarkable outcome in terms of the measured number of infected patients and theoverall mortality rate. Nonetheless, the public health authority’s various mitigationstrategies and vaccination efforts have faced several challenges primarily posed bypolitically motivated Christian fundamentalists and ultraconservative media’s distortednews framing in Korea. This paper examines how these conservative forces – both religiousand political – have undermined the Korean public health authority’s various mitigationefforts and discusses how to address the problems from a public policy point of view. Thepaper argues that a comprehensive legal reform including the introduction of effectivepunitive damages in the media market is a necessary minimum to address some of theseproblems.