President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s transition team has criticized the Moon Jae-in administration’s Covid-19 fight as “political quarantine,” but Cheong Wa Dae is counterattacking its critics, emphasizing the accomplishment of the “K-quarantine.”

In a newly opened website, the presidential secretariat cited several elements as significant achievements, such as controlling virus inflows through quarantines at ports and airports, developing quick Covid-19 diagnostic test methods, introducing drive-through testing, carrying out vaccination beginning with nursing facilities, and transparent disclosure of information.

Cheong Wa Dae recently opened the “National Report” website that summed up the Moon administration’s term in office over the past five years.

The Covid-19 part was presented as one of the keywords in the website, along with the Korean New Deal, leap to advanced countries’ rank, economic leadership, inclusive welfare, narrowing gap and job creation, balanced national growth, public safety, peaceful country, fair and unified society.

Concerning Covid-19, the report said that thanks to the public’s voluntary participation, Korea could attain one of the highest vaccination rates worldwide, reducing the severity and fatality rate despite the spread of the Omicron variant.

It then introduced the Moon administration’s major responses to the pandemic since its outbreak was first reported in China in December 2019, mentioning that the government effectively contained the spread of Covid-19 “without national or municipal lockdowns” through rapid diagnostic testing in its early days, epidemiological investigations, and swift treatment.

It counted the development of the Covid-19 diagnostic test method on Jan. 9, 2020, increasing the number of tests from about 20,000 in February 2020 to about 800,000 a month as of January 2022 as a significant achievement.

Cheong Wa Dae recalled the meeting of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention, the Korean Society for Diagnostic Testing, and private reagent developers at the Seoul Railway Station on Jan. 27, 2020.

It then emphasized the “Seoul Station Meeting” served as a catalyst to drastically promote the development of test kits and enhance their functions, helping the nation respond to the pandemic far more effectively.

Besides, the website also mentioned the drive-through Covid-19 tests, use of ICT techniques, including electronic access registers, and the operation of community treatment centers, saying these earned praise as the global examples of effective quarantine.

The presidential office also noted that the government had tried hard to win the public’s trust in its responses to Covid-19 through the transparent disclosure of information by holding daily briefings on new virus cases and vaccinations and operating a Covid-19 website.

Contrary to the government’s evaluation, the transition team defined the incumbent administration’s responses to Covid-19 as “political quarantine,” saying it had made decisions according to public opinions.

Accordingly, the transition team has made a nine-point recommendation to the government: Shifting from non-face-to-face treatment to face-to-face cure at neighborhood clinics; introducing fast-track care for high-risk groups; analyzing and disclosing the government’s Covid-19 data; surveying antibody positivity rates of people; maintaining vaccine mandate; importing more Covid-19 pills and examining the possibility of producing generics by paying royalties; rollover of debt payments by self-employed people.

However, some experts said most of these recommendations are little new, pointing out that many are already being done, with the rest impractical.

Despite such criticisms, the transition team plans to work out detailed steps for each recommendation and use them as the basis for the next government’s responses to Covid-19.