Starting next Wednesday, unvaccinated foreign arrivals won’t have to isolate themselves for a week like their vaccinated counterparts, officials said Friday.
According to Central Disaster Management Headquarters, the government has decided to apply the quarantine exemption to unvaccinated entrants from abroad, the final phase of the post-Omicron entry system, reflecting the steady decline in new Covid-19 cases and stabilized situations overseas.
Under the new rule, mandatory quarantine will be gone in disregard of vaccination and nationality. Previously, unvaccinated foreign arrivals had to quarantine themselves for a week.
The new step will go into effect next Wednesday. However, the rule retroactively applies to those who entered Korea before that. Therefore, officials said that people who entered the country before Wednesday are quarantined after testing negative would be automatically released from that duty.
However, the government decided to retain the current mandatory testing of Covid-19 before and after entering the country, reflecting the continuous inflows of highly contagious subvariants of Omicron, including BA.2.12.1.
Korean nationals and long-term foreign residents can take the PCR tests at public health centers and other facilities free of charge within three days of entry. Short-term foreign residents should take the tests at airports or hospitals at their own expense.
Moreover, the government will fully normalize the number of international flights and lift the curfew for arrivals at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul.
“The decline of new virus cases continued this week, and hospital bed occupancy rate also remains stable at 10 percent or so, leaving the government sufficient resources to cope with the pandemic,” Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said while presiding over the daily CDMH meeting. “Considering the stabilized quarantine situation and medical response system, the government will try to return to normalcy more rapidly to reduce the public’s inconvenience.”
On Friday, Korea's new coronavirus cases bounced back to over 10,000 as the country is working to return to pre-pandemic normalcy.
The country added 12,542 Covid-19 infections, including 35 cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 18,141,835, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.
The death toll came to 24,229, up 17 from Thursday, with the fatality rate at 0.13 percent. The number of critically ill patients fell by 16 to 160, the KDCA said.
Health authorities have taken a series of measures in recent weeks to return to normalcy as the pandemic wanes.
On Wednesday, the government shut down most makeshift Covid-19 testing stations across the country. Instead, it plans to increase the number of private clinics and local hospitals designated for the virus treatment.
As of Thursday, 44.59 million, or 86.9 percent of the population, had completed the full two-dose vaccinations, 33.3 million, representing 64.9 percent, had received their first booster shots, the KDCA said.
The health agency said that more than 4.1 million people, or 8 percent, had gotten their second booster shots.