Travelers from China required to undergo Covid-19 testing

Social Affairs

Published: 01 Jan. 2023, 16:58 Updated: 03 Jan. 2023, 18:48

Travelers from China required to undergo Covid-19 testing

A sign put up by the Korean Air at the Incheon airport on Friday informs travelers to China about meals no longer being served aboard the flights due to a request from the Chinese government citing Covid-19 concerns. All inbound travelers from China will be tested for Covid-19 upon arrival in Korea starting Monday. [NEWS1]

All inbound travelers from China are required to be tested for Covid-19 upon their arrival in Korea starting Monday, with measures to be strengthened from Thursday.

Short-term visitors will be tested at the airport upon their arrival. They will have to wait for their results before passing through the airport and those who test positive will be transported to state-run quarantine facilities, to be quarantined for seven days, said the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), country’s Covid-19 response body.

Travelers from China with residency status in Korea will be required to be tested at a local public health center in the district of their residence, within a day of their arrival.

They are asked to remain quarantined at home until they receive the test results. Those who test positive will be asked to remain quarantined at home for seven days.

Also starting Monday, travelers from China will be required to register their information on the Q-Code system, accessible via a website created by the KDCA, to report their health conditions to local authorities, before they board their flights.

This system will require travelers to input their passport number and contact information, as well as their current health condition, to be allowed to board a flight to Korea, said the KDCA. Once this information is processed, passengers will be given a unique QR code, which they will have to show relevant authorities at the airports.

The KDCA announced these new measures for travelers from China following an increase of Covid-19 cases detected in recent weeks.

Of the inbound travelers from China in November, 19 tested positive for Covid. In December, this number surged to 278 as of last Friday, according to the KDCA.

Starting Thursday, measures will be strengthened with an additional requirement for all Korea-bound travelers from China to have a negative PCR test result within 48 hours of boarding their flight, or a negative rapid antigen test issued by a local clinic 24 hours before boarding their flight, to be allowed to board their flights, said the KDCA.

These measures will stand through Feb. 28.

The Korean embassies and consulates in China will also stop issuing short-term visas for travel into Korea until Jan. 31, according to the KDCA. Visa requests for diplomatic missions or humanitarian purposes will still be considered at these missions, it added.

Millions are estimated to be infected in China, whose government stopped publishing daily counts of infections last week. As many as 37 million were estimated to have been infected daily in the third week of December, with a total of around 18 percent of the population reportedly infected in the first 20 days of December.

Other countries such as France, the U.K., Spain and Italy have also started requiring travelers from China to present a negative Covid-19 test result before boarding flights.

China relaxed its zero-Covid policy in the first week of December, after protests in major cities broke out against the nearly three-year continuation of strict mass testing and lockdowns that severely disrupted the daily lives of locals.

Korea once required all inbound travelers to have a negative test result before boarding a flight to Korea, to be tested for Covid-19 after arrival and to quarantine for seven days from February 2021, but dropped all measures by the end of October.

After noting some residents in Korea buying cold medicine in bulk to ship to China, local health authorities said they will restrict the amount of cold medicine sold at pharmacies.

Korea added 57,527 new cases of Covid-19 as of Saturday midnight, according to the KDCA. A total of 636 Covid-19 patients hospitalized were in a critical condition. Sixty-three people died of Covid between Saturday to Sunday, bringing the total number of deaths to 32,219, and the mortality rate to 0.11 percent.

BY ESTHER CHUNG, CHO JUNG-WOO [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]