Politicians’ intervention in the nation’s anti-coronavirus fight has made a breach in its quarantine net. However, they don’t work out measures but blame others.

A case in point is the Covid-19 self-diagnosis kits based on rapid antigen tests. Despite warnings from experts who pointed out that self-test kits are not appropriate for screening inspection due to low sensitivity, politicians pushed for their introduction.

Last December, the health authorities introduced rapid antigen tests in about 150 screening centers in the Seoul metro region upon the instruction of President Moon Jae-in to make the most of them. Unfortunately, there was no means to distinguish false-negative results at that time, either. The politicians even went one step further, calling for health officials to use rapid antigen kits for self-test purposes.

Based on their verification of rapid antigen test kits, the Korean Society for Laboratory Medicine stressed more than a few times that the kits were not appropriate for screening inspection, saying their sensitivity was as low as 11 percent in the case of samples with low virus output.

The society pointed out that the sensitivity could fall even lower in self-tests where ordinary people collect samples from their noses. A study by the University of Buckingham in the U.K. found the sensitivity as low as 3 percent. However, quarantine policymakers prioritized politicians’ opinions ahead of those of experts. Some experts said at the time, “Politicians will not quite down before the nation use rapid antigen test kits and experience the resurge of infections as a result.”

Despite the concerns about confusing the quarantine system, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety conditionally approved two self-test kits in April, and the companies began their sales later the month. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon pushed for the “Seoul model of win-win quarantine,” followed by similar moves by other mayors and governors who competitively used self-test kits.

Two months later, the fourth wave of Covid-19 swept across the country, with more than 30 percent of new patients having unknown infection routes. As self-test kits were singled out as the main culprit of the “silent spread,” a comedy took place in the political community. Political parties, which had competed in calling for their introduction, are now pointing to each other for what they called the “policy failure.”

The politicians are not presenting any measures to plug the loophole they had made. They are even ignoring calls for at least building a monitoring system by inputting the results of self-test kit uses. In a worst-case scenario, the K-quarantine could end up as a failed system due to self-testing.