South Korean girl band Everglow Photo: VCG

 Two members of South Korean girl band Everglow, Chinese singer Yiren and South Korean singer Sihyeon, tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday. The two are the latest COVID-19 infection cases in the South Korean entertainment industry.

The girl band, which has five South Korean members and one Chinese member, is managed by the Chinese entertainment company Yuehua and is mainly active in South Korea. 
The news of Yiren and Sihyeon’s positive test results caused worry among the band’s Chinese fans.

The related hashtag “Yiren and Sihyeon tested positive for COVID-19” quickly began trending on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo, racking up more than 150 million views as of Wednesday afternoon.

In posts, Chinese fans wished the two a quick recovery and expressed their concern for Yiren’s parents. 
“Her parents must be very worried as they cannot go there to take care of their daughter,” one netizen wrote.

This is not the band’s first brush with the coronavirus. According to reports in April, after an employee at the entertainment company tested positive for the virus, the girl band was tested. Fortunately, their results came back negative at the time.  
After learning that the two infected members are roommates, some Chinese fans worried that the dorm life that most K-pop idols live could put them at an increase risk of infection during this dangerous time.

“Many K-pop stars live in a dorm and even in the same room all the time. This close proximity might allow the virus to spread among them more rapidly. Do they not have measures in place?” one worried Chinese fan of the South Korean boy band Winner said in an interview with the Global Times on Wednesday.

Looking at posts on social media, other Chinese netizens share her view, as well as worry if the many promotional events idols need to attend may also pose a health risk.


The number of celebrities around the world who have been infected is still increasing.

Previously, two members of the South Korean boy band UP10TION also tested positive for the coronavirus, sparking a storm in the South Korean entertainment industry.

In addition to those in the music industry, several cases have cropped up among South Korean actors and actresses, leading to the shutdown of some TV drama productions.

In other countries, including Japan and the US, celebrities have not proven to be immune from the horrible virus. 

US actors Tom Hanks, Dwayne Johnson and Robert Pattinson, as well as Idris Elba, have all tested positive.

Sport stars cannot treat the coronavirus lightly either. The infection of Cristiano Ronaldo, renowned soccer player, shocked the whole world.