What Glooby said is a *huge* issue for a  lot of different diseases.

For example, the AIDS virus has never killed a person ever. Because it doesn't exist. Because it's just a description of symptoms that HIV infected patients express.
Which *also* has never killed a person, because all it really does is disable one's immune system. Nearly 100% of deaths in HIV patients are from secondary infections.
But on the other hand, when people say that the AIDS epidemic has killed millions, only the worst pedant would disagree.
(The above example is maybe a bit over-simplified, but the general gist of it is true)

Similarily, while Covid19 does kill some of those who contract it, it usually is most deadly when there are co-determining factors. Figuring if it was the Covid19 virus, the pneumonia, or the diabetes that was ultimately responsible for the death of the 93 year old bed-ridden chain smoker can be... problematic at best.

Not much news coverage today was about the air.

https://aqicn.org/map/southkorea/

Much more was about coronavirus.

But coronavirus has killed less than 0.03% of the world’s population.

According to this, air pollution is responsible for one in five deaths globally:

https://www.google.com/amp/m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.amp.asp%3fnewsIdx=304149

(Incidentally, pollution weakens immune systems, causing greater susceptibility to harm from coronavirus.)

Nothing at all about it here (as of now): https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/main.asp

Arirang News said very little. (Almost nothing.)

Teachers and friends I talked to didn’t know until I told them.

It got proportionally less attention than coronavirus yesterday and today. Way less.

Shouldn’t the insanely bad air from a massive yellow dust storm be the top news story today? I’m surprised by how little media coverage it’s been getting.

So weird. It rained a fair bit on Saturday, so the air quality in my neck of the woods was almost perfect yesterday.
Got *loads* of great cherry blossom photos with azure blue skies in the background (as opposed to the off white haze that we usually get this time of year)!
Lucky.

I found one more article after searching more, but that’s it. Tons about COVID though.

Yellow Dust Blankets S. Korea
http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/news_view.htm?lang=e&Seq_Code=160454

I find it interesting that on an abnormally awful day like today, schools are open (as well as other facilities that could close for a day with no major repercussions). In my opinion, this is comparable to needing to close schools on bad snow days for safety reasons. The only difference is that, unlike a snowstorm, this isn't a physical danger that keeps people from commuting. But it's still incredibly dangerous and no one should be leaving their homes unless absolutely necessary :/ yet all the students are playing outside like there's nothing wrong and most of them (as well as coworkers) are wearing masks that are useless against the dust. I'm lucky that it doesn't affect me as badly as others, I mostly feel pressure in my head along with a bad headache (and sadly no air purifier in my classroom to help) but other foreign friends of mine have said it makes them feel like they have the flu with body aches and everything, but my Korean coworkers don't seem to have any problems. I suppose when you live with bad air quality your whole life, you get used to it?

Not to go all D.Mart, but the English news in Korea is laughably bad. I think everyone already knows that. If you want the latest up-to-date Korean news start using Korean language sources.

I'm not so sure. Seems some people here seem to believe the KoreaTimes is the paper of record here.

Guys, if you aren't citing the Korean-language versions of the Chojoongdong, the Hankyoreh, maybe one of the other national ones, and Naver and Daum's front, then what you claim it represents is suspect at best.

Like, anyone with a brain knows you should look at the native-language versions of domestic news outlets to get a sense of what the big stories are and what the people are talking about. Not what some borderline-tabloid English news outlet says.