By the time eight-year-old Lee Ji-ho is bundled out the door for his one day a week of in-class schooling, his mother has already completed an online form detailing his temperature, any signs of a cough or other respiratory complaints, and whether any family members have recently arrived home from overseas or are in quarantine.

Once at school in Seoul’s Seocho district, he sits metres apart from classmates and is instructed not to talk to friends — not even during lunch, where instead he eats in solitude, separated from the other children by a plastic divider.

The rigour faced by the young Ji-ho and his parents is just one example of an ever-expanding series of guidelines, rules and regulations imposed on a country of 52m by health officials desperately trying to avoid fresh waves of coronavirus.