There is no other way . Hiatus is always the key . Its a smart choice for Cube to cancel all their schedule and honestly please let the girl hiatus untill the end of the year. Resuming activity , or even worse, making a comeback for the next 5 months after a big scandal is a career suicide . Even if Soojin is innoncent , the damage has been done so a hiatus is a must in order for gidle to survive.
The biggest example are T-ARA and AOA
T-ara had their bullying scandal during Day By Day era . Just when they about to get the next hits with Day By Day , the whole Hwayoung scandal breakout. After the whole mess and Hwayoung leave they proceed with Sexy Love comeback without getting any break or hiatus and guess what ? They receive massive hate for that, left and right and never recover till 2017.
AOA have their history scandal on 2016 with Jimin and Seolhyun just few days before Good Luck comeback . Good Luck is expected to become AOA next hit as it was their first released since Heart Attack and Seolhyun was on her peaked . AOA proceed with the comeback even they are in the middle of controversy and they getting blacklash for that to the point they had to promote for only 1 or 2 week on music show . Their next comeback Excuse Me is a huge flop which peaked #33 on Melon and ppl believe its due to their image.
Girls Day,SNSD,KARA and IZONE are among the group that survived a big scandal thanks to hiatus . During Ring My Bell era , Girls Day was caught on screen for being rude toward the mcs . It make their song drop from the top of Melon and they had to shorten the promotion for RMB and went hiatus for months. They dont even attend any award show or gayo daejun despite Ring My Bell doing really well. Thanks for that (and Hyeri acting on Reply 1988) Girls Day manage to survive and fixed their image (no one even remember the scandal anymore)
IZONE....well the whole produce rigging and they cancel the Fiesta comeback, went MIA and we know how well FIESTA doing (tho ion think hiatus is the main factor of the success but still count)
Tiffany had her national flag scandal and its a huge mess with 50k upvotes comment telling her to leave South Korean.She (and SNSD) went hiatus, she leave all her variety show . Then SNSD are back to radar after almost a year of hiatus and everyone forgot the scandal already
KARA had their rude scandal on Radio Star back then on 2013 during Damaged Lady promotion . They shorten the promotion period and went hiatus and then comeback after a year leading to Mamma Mia success.
What do you think ???