Korea to resume issuing short-term visas to travelers from China

Passengers from China arrive at Incheon International Airport on Thursday afternoon. [YONHAP]

Korea will resume issuing short-term visas to travelers from China starting Saturday, health authorities announced Friday.

The suspension of short-term visas for travelers from China was supposed to run until the end of this month.

The Central Disease Control Headquarters said Friday that it has decided to lift the suspension early and allow people traveling from China to apply for short-term visas as the number of people arriving in Korea that have tested positive for Covid-19 has dropped significantly.

Kim Sung-ho, a senior official at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, said that the percentage of travelers entering from China that have tested positive for Covid-19 has recently fallen to 1 percent, and there are no concerns of variants emerging.

Between Jan. 29 and Feb. 4, among the 1,788 people that arrived from China on a short-term visa issued before the Korean government stopped processing applications on Jan. 2, 25 people tested positive. That's only 1.4 percent of the travelers from China that arrived during that period.

The Korean government suspended the short-term visa from China on Jan. 2 after the number of people in China that were infected with Covid-19 surged when the Chinese government abandoned its zero-Covid policy.

The Korean government further extended the suspension, which initially was to expire at the end of January, for another month in fear of a resurgence caused by people traveling in China during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Only people traveling for business, diplomacy or humanitarian reasons were allowed to apply for visas during that period.

Beijing immediately retaliated by suspending short-term visas for Koreans to enter China, as well as transit visas.

The number of daily new Covid-19 cases in Korea was 13,504, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the lowest tally for a Friday in 32 weeks. The downward trend comes despite the lifting of most of the indoor mask mandate on Jan. 30.

BY LEE HO-JEONG, SARAH KIM [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]