Vaccine pass system to end Tuesday

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Vaccine pass system to end Tuesday

A sign saying that the vaccine pass system is temporarily suspended from March 1 is placed in a restaurant window in Daegu on Monday. [NEWS1]

A sign saying that the vaccine pass system is temporarily suspended from March 1 is placed in a restaurant window in Daegu on Monday. [NEWS1]

 
The vaccine pass system, a major part of late pandemic life in Korea, will be suspended starting Tuesday.
 
“Considering the readjustment of public health measures because of the characteristics of Omicron and the issue of fairness by age and region, the government will temporarily suspend vaccine pass enforcement at 11 types of facilities including restaurants and cafes,” Interior Minister Jeon Hae-cheol said during a virus response meeting on Monday.
 
“The measure will enable public health centers [...] to concentrate more on handling high-risk groups, and is expected to further strengthen our administrative capacity dealing with Omicron,” Jeon added.
 
Vaccine passes ― proof of full vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test result ― will no longer be needed to go to restaurants and cafes; bars and night clubs; indoor sports facilities; noraebang (singing rooms); bathhouses; PC bang (internet cafes); massage parlors; rooms that can be rented for parties; multibang (multi-purpose entertainment spaces); casinos; and sports stadiums.
 
Nor will passes be needed to attend rallies or other large events involving more than 50 people. A vaccine pass system for people between the ages of 12 to 18 was set to be implemented from April, but that was also canceled before it even goes into effect.
 
The government stipulated that the vaccine pass suspension is “provisional” and could be resumed with the emergence of a new virus variant or some other development.
 
Vaccine passes were introduced to “support the recovery of daily life of the fully vaccinated and protect the unvaccinated” under the country’s gradual return to normalcy in November, when the Delta variant was dominant.
 
After being introduced, the system met with a series of petitions and legal challenges, which arguing that it violated basic rights and discriminated against unvaccinated people.
 
Regions of Seoul, Gyeonggi, Daejeon, Incheon and North Chungcheong had put brakes on the implementation of vaccine passes for teenagers. Recently, a court in Daegu halted the pass system for all people under 60 at restaurants and cafes.
 
After Omicron became dominant, with its stronger transmissibility and lower severity of illness, the government shifted its focus from managing all confirmed patients to handling high-risk groups. Since then, it stopped requiring people to flash QR codes so they can be traced later, and scrapped mandatory quarantines for people who live with Covid patients.  
 
Inevitably, the logic of vaccine passes came into question.
 
On Monday, the government explained that it was aiming at consistent virus policies, and reducing confusion from differences between ages and regions.
 
Another purpose was to reduce the strain on health centers due to a surge of requests for negative test results to be used as vaccine passes.
 
According to health authorities, an average of 250,000 rapid antigen tests are being conducted daily at Covid-19 screening centers nationwide, and 55 percent of them were being taken to obtain a negative test result as a vaccine pass, leading to more work at public health centers.
 
With the halt of vaccine passes, health centers will stop issuing certificates of negative test results from Tuesday, which can be issued by private medical institutions.
 
With this decision, almost all virus regulations will disappear from March 1, except for mask mandates, the cap on private gatherings of up to six, and business curfews at 10 p.m. The government hinted it is “gathering opinions” on alleviating the social distancing rules.
 
“We ask for the public’s understanding [of the new measures] as a process of reorganizing all virus measures according to the characteristics of Omicron,” said Son Young-rae, senior epidemiological strategist at the Central Disaster Management Headquarters.
 
On Monday, the country reported 139,626 new infections and 114 more deaths from Covid-19.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]
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