Korea on alert over spread of new COVID-19 variant

By Jun Ji-hye

Three Korean nationals who returned from the United Kingdom last week were confirmed to have the new strain of COVID-19 discovered there, the first cases detected here. This has put the health authorities on high alert over the potential spread of the more transmissible variant of the coronavirus.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said Monday that the three were family members who came from London, Dec. 22.

“We found the new COVID-19 strain in samples collected from the three arrivals from the United Kingdom,” the KDCA said in a press release.

British health experts have suggested that the new strain, which was thought to have first occurred in southern England in September, may be up to 70 percent more transmissible than older variants.

The KDCA said it has less concern over the possible spread of the new strain by the family members as they have been under treatment since their arrival after testing positive during the quarantine process at the airport. But they added they cannot rule out the possibility of the virus having been transmitted inside the airplane.

Separately, the authorities are also carrying out an investigation to find out whether another four-person family who returned from the U.K. earlier this month were infected with the new COVID-19 strain after one of them, a man in his 80s, posthumously tested positive for COVID-19.

The man who was under 14-day self-isolation after returning to Korea, Dec. 13, died Saturday after experiencing cardiac arrest at a hospital in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province. The man had suffered from heart disease, the authorities said, noting that it is uncertain whether the virus was directly related to his death.

Two family members who arrived together with the deceased man, and the other, who arrived, Dec. 8, initially tested negative on the day of their arrival. But the three were confirmed to have the virus after undergoing testing again following the man's death. The last person was recently released from self-isolation, so the authorities are conducting an epidemiological investigation to find out where they visited afterward.

Amid growing fears over the more transmissible variant, the government decided to expand the suspension of all passenger flights from the U.K. for another week until Jan. 7, according to KDCA Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong.

“The suspension of flights from the U.K. will be expanded for another week for now. We will continuously monitor developments before deciding on whether to continue to ban air travel from that country,” Jeong said during a media briefing.

She pointed out that the new COVID-19 strain has not only been found in the U.K. but also in other countries, saying that all foreign arrivals will be subject to additional testing at the end of their mandatory isolation period.

“We will carry out a gene analysis on those who test positive in the additional testing to find out whether they are infected with the new variant,” she said.

Health experts said variants of the COVID-19 coronavirus have been expected, and it needs to be seen whether the newly-found one leads to more serious illness.

“The strain is known to be 70 percent more transmissible than other strains, but there is no evidence yet that it increases the chances of serious illness or death, or that current vaccines do not work,” Kim Woo-joo, a professor at Korea University Guro, Hospital, said in a recent YouTube clip.

According to the KDCA, the nation added 808 more infections for Sunday including 787 locally transmitted cases, raising the total caseload to 57,680.

The country's daily virus cases stayed below 1,000 for the second straight day, but the authorities are staying vigilant as this may have been due mainly to less testing over the weekend.

Eleven more people had died, raising the death toll to 819.