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| New arrivals approach quarantine officials in Incheon International Airport, Tuesday./ Yonhap |
By Kim Se-jeong
The government is facing growing calls to toughen its entry rules for non-citizens in order to protect the country from COVID-19 infections being "imported" from overseas.
The calls stem from a steadily increase in the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus ― double-digit daily counts for more than a month ― coming here from other countries. Also, the government is finding more foreign nationals who are violating quarantine rules.
On Tuesday, the police said they were searching for three Vietnamese nationals who had escaped a designated facility during self-quarantine.
"We believe they did it using an emergency escape rope," said Yoon Tae-ho, a high-ranking official with the quarantine authorities, adding the government is considering dispatching more police officers and military personnel to the facility, and adding more surveillance cameras.
The three arrived in Korea on tourist visas but had employment contracts with a local shipping company.
Their disappearance followed another case where 32 Russian sailors from one fishing vessel were found to be infected. The virus spread among local residents in Busan, including Korean workers who had been on the vessel and their family members.
The government said it's considering to designate Russia as a COVID-19 high-risk country. Other countries on the list Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Amid the pandemic, foreign nationals are posing a challenge to the government, which is also beginning to feel the burden of giving free treatment to all COVID-19 patients here. Yet, many foreign nationals living in Korea claim most new arrivals bringing infections are Koreans, not foreigners, and say the government measures discriminate against them.
Currently, the government has opened its airports and seaports to arrivals from a limited number of countries. It asks inbound and returning foreign travelers to submit a negative test result at the ports of entry before departing for Korea. Upon arrival, they're subject to another virus test and two weeks of self-quarantine.
Experts are advising the government to toughen the entry rules further to keep the local population safe.
"To keep the number of imported cases down, there have to be entry bans on certain foreign nationals," said Kim Woo-joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University Guro Hospital.
Meanwhile, the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 28 additional COVID-19 infections, Monday, pushing the total caseload up to 14,203, with one additional death raising total fatalities to 300.
The new cases included a family member of a Korean technician who had contracted the virus from a Russian sailor. Ten Koreans have contracted the virus from the crew of the vessel the sailor was on so far.
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