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Travelers arriving at Incheon International Airport from London get tested at open walk-thru screening centers for COVID-19 ON Mar. 26. (Baek So-ah, staff photographer)

If South Korean citizens who have entered the country from the US or Europe violate their two-week self-quarantine and leave their residence without permission, the police will be dispatched to return them to their residences by force. Criminal proceedings will immediately follow, under a no-tolerance principle. Non-Koreans guilty of the same violations will be deported. These measures are intended to ensure that people arriving from overseas don’t trigger a community-based spread of COVID-19.

South Korea’s Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters announced these measures on Mar. 26 as part of a plan to tighten oversight of people placed under self-quarantine after entering the country. A South Korean studying in the US who arrived at Incheon International Airport on Mar. 15 went on a five-day trip to Jeju Island, from Mar. 20 to Mar. 24, despite having symptoms, including chills, muscle pain and a sore throat, beginning on Mar. 20. The student tested positive for COVID-19 the day after returning from Jeju, on Mar. 25.

To ensure that other people who’ve entered South Korea from countries with a high risk of COVID-19 don’t leave their homes, as K did, the disaster safety headquarters is extending the mandatory self-quarantine to people arriving from the US starting on Mar. 27. Anyone who leaves their home during their self-quarantine will also be handed over to the criminal authorities.

According to figures released by the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) on Thursday, 39 of the 104 new cases of COVID-19 had occurred in people arriving from other countries.

According to the tougher oversight measures, people arriving from Europe and the US will not be allowed to enter the country unless they install an app called “self-quarantine safety protection” on their mobile device. As of Mar. 25, the installation rate for the self-quarantine app was 60.9%. The app allows people under quarantine to give the public health authorities daily updates about their health status, including whether they have a fever. The app also allows the authorities to track subjects’ location and alerts the authorities when subjects leave the area of quarantine. This app enabled the government to catch people breaking quarantine on 11 occasions between Mar. 13 and 24.

If the public health authorities learn that a self-quarantine subject has broken quarantine without a legitimate reason, they’ll issue a “code zero,” the highest-priority alert, on the crime hotline 112. The police will be immediately dispatched to return the offender to their quarantine location.

After quarantine is enforced, the local government with jurisdiction will immediately initiate criminal proceedings against the person in question for violating the Quarantine Act. If convicted, offenders face up to a year in prison and a fine up to 10 million won (US$8,269). Furthermore, South Korean citizens will forfeit their livelihood assistance of 1.23 million won (US$1,017) a month (for a family of four), while foreigners will be deported.

In addition to the app, the authorities are planning to use a government reporting service called Safety e-Report and reporting centers set up at various local governments to collect tips about people breaking quarantine.

The public health authorities have decided to recommend, but not require, self-quarantine for people arriving from parts of the world outside of Europe and the US. “The risk of an influx of the disease is lower in other countries, and the special entry protocols are [already] in place. We’re asking people entering from locations other than Europe and the US to remain at home as much as possible and to minimize interaction with other people,” said KCDC Deputy Director Kwon Jun-wook.

In a related development, the authorities began operating open screening centers installed outside of Incheon Airport on Thursday afternoon in order to speed up COVID-19 testing of foreigners entering the country without any symptoms. The open screening centers are open on all sides, allowing them to be constantly and naturally ventilated by the wind.

“At ordinary screening centers, we can only collect a sample from one person every 30 minutes because of the time needed for disinfection and ventilation. But with the open screening centers, we can collect a sample every 4-5 minutes, enabling testing of up to 2,000 people a day. We’re planning to operate a total of 16 of these sample collection booths, with eight at Terminal 1 and eight at Terminal 2,” a KCDC spokesperson said.

By Park Da-hae and Lee Yu-jin, staff reporters

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