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Incheon International Airport is nearly empty amid the global coronavirus pandemic on Mar. 25. (Yonhap News)

On Mar. 25, the South Korean government reported that more than half of its new cases of COVID-19, the disease resulting from the novel coronavirus, were people arriving from overseas. Starting Mar. 27, public health authorities are planning to require everyone entering from the US, both Korean citizens and foreign nationals, to undergo two weeks of self-quarantine.

“As of midnight last night, 100 new people had been diagnosed with COVID-19, with 51 of them arriving from overseas,” a spokesperson for South Korea’s Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said during the daily briefing on Wednesday. This was the first time that the number of new cases from overseas had exceeded that of community-based transmission following the transmission cluster that originated with the Shincheonji religious sect. Among the new cases, 34 people (28 Korean citizens) tested positive during quarantine at the airport, while 17 people (15 Korean citizens) who’d arrived from overseas were diagnosed at the community level.

There were only 14 new cases in Daegu on Tuesday, showing that the explosion of cases linked to the city’s Shincheonji branch has slowed. As of Mar. 26, the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases reported in the country stands at 9,241, with 284 (253 Korean citizens) involving people who’d arrived from overseas.

Because of the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases among people entering the country and in particular among people arriving from the US, South Korea’s disaster safety headquarters is planning to require everyone arriving from the US, both Korean citizens and foreign nationals, to undergo a mandatory 14-day self-quarantine period, with the new rule taking effect on Mar. 27. From Mar. 23 to 25, 29 cases of COVID-19 were identified among people entering from the US, accounting for 30.9% of the 94 cases originating abroad during the same period.

Once these tougher quarantine measures go into effect, anyone arriving from the US with suspicious symptoms will be immediately tested for COVID-19 at the airport’s quarantine center. Those who test positive will be transferred to a hospital or a temporary housing facility for treatment. Short-term foreign visitors who cannot be placed in self-quarantine because they don’t have a fixed residence in the country will be tested at the airport and, presuming their test comes back negative, will be cleared for entry and placed under active monitoring.

By Noh Ji-won and Park Jun-yong, staff reporters

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