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Residents of Asan, South Chungcheong Province, protest a government decision to quarantine South Koreans repatriated from Wuhan, China, by blocking a police training center with tractors on Jan. 29.

The South Korean citizens who will be repatriated from Wuhan, in China’s Hubei Province, on charter flights on Jan. 30-31 will be kept in quarantine for 14 days, provided they don’t have a fever or respiratory symptoms. They’ll be housed temporarily in public facilities in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, and Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province. While Japan is also repatriating citizens from Wuhan, it isn’t planning to force the returnees to stay together in a specific facility.

The task force charged with coordinating the South Korean government’s response to the novel coronavirus said on Jan. 29 that the 720 citizens hoping to return home would undergo medical screening at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport and that only those without fever or respiratory symptoms would be allowed to board the charter plane. In the event that passengers exhibit suspicious symptoms after boarding the plane, they’ll be transferred to a state-designated treatment facility for hospitalization immediately after landing at Gimpo Airport. Individuals cleared by a second medical screening following their arrival at Gimpo will be assigned a single room at temporary accommodations. Children, however, will be allowed to stay with family members.

Anyone at the facility who starts showing suspicious symptoms will be moved to a state-designated hospital and tested for infection. If 14 days (the virus’s incubation period) passes without any noticeable symptoms, individuals will be allowed to return home after attending a public health lecture.

The government task force offered the following explanation about how it selected the quarantine facilities: “We needed a facility capable of housing not only the 720 citizens but also 40 staff at each facility, and we also looked for facilities that were within an hour from a general hospital and that could be reached from the airport in less than two hours.”

While all 720 citizens hope to return home, any who are found to have a fever or respiratory symptoms during the medical screening prior to their departure from Wuhan won’t be allowed to board the plane. Minister of Health and Welfare Park Neung-hoo created some confusion when he said shortly before the final announcement on Wednesday morning that even those with coronavirus-like symptoms would be repatriated.

“Since we must comply with local regulations and procedures about medical screening, the decision we reached in our deliberations with the Chinese authorities was to transport those without symptoms for now. As for those citizens who remain in Wuhan, we’ll be developing measures in consultation with our diplomatic missions to ensure they receive the greatest possible protection,” said a spokesperson for the government task force.

Quarantining all the returnees, despite their lack of suspicious symptoms, is “somewhat excessive,” said Lee Jae-gap, a professor of infectious disease at Hallym University, adding, “I think [the government] has made this compromise in light of public anxiety.”

“In domestic cases, individuals who have come into contact with someone who has tested positive are quarantined at home during the incubation period as long as they don’t have any symptoms. But if we announced home quarantine for everyone returning from Wuhan, we’d have people panicking all over the country,” said a government source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentioned Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, as the area of quarantine in an announcement on Jan. 28, it didn’t specify the location in its final briefing on the grounds that it “hadn’t been decided yet.” This backpedaling was reportedly motivated by pushback from Cheonan residents, but the shift to quarantine facilities in Asan and Jincheon only provoked opposition from the residents of those cities.

Following news reports, some 100 people living near a national police training center in the Chosa neighborhood of Asan promised to take “strong action.” Meanwhile, residents of Jincheon took steps to prevent Koreans who had resided in Wuhan from reaching a training center for government employees in Deoksan Township, barricading the entrance with tractors and trucks. The government of North Chungcheong Province released a press release claiming that there’s a “great risk of residents being infected since the training center is in the middle of an ‘innovation city,’” referring to a government-sponsored urban project.

But other locals support housing the Wuhan returnees in their neighborhood, provided that the quarantine is safe and definite. “If all areas and residents reject the returnees, where are they going to go? As long as they can be treated safely and kept completely separate from locals, they ought to be quarantined,” said a homemaker surnamed Lim who lives in the innovation city.

This attitude was echoed by Choe Won-seok, a professor of infectious disease at Korea University. “While I understand the intense feelings of fear, there’s no medical grounds for worrying that the virus will [escape the temporary housing facility and] spread into the community.”

By Park Hyun-jung and Kim So-youn, staff reporters, Song In-geol, Daejeon correspondent

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