TV watching is through the roof in Korea thanks to coronavirus

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TV watching is through the roof in Korea thanks to coronavirus

The coronavirus outbreak is making a major impact on how much TV the country is watching.

According to Nielsen Korea on Wednesday, the time an individual spent watching TV in Korea increased 10.6 percent in the last week of February compared to the week before. The average individual TV-watching time was 235 minutes during the third week of February. The number rose to 260 minutes in the fourth week.

That week, the number of confirmed cases in the country more than quadrupled, from 763 to 3,526, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). The Korean government raised the alert level for infectious diseases to the highest level in the beginning of that week.

The average individual TV-watching time dropped to 250 minutes in the first week of March, according to Nielsen Korea. The first week of March brought some good news regarding the number of recovered patients. On March 5, the number of recovered patients doubled from the day before, to 88. The total number of recoveries reached 1,540, as of Wednesday at 12 a.m.

“We think the rate will continue to remain high and will likely be higher than average about this time last year,” Nielsen Korea told Yonhap News on Wednesday.

By Esther Chung
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