Exempting vaccinated travelers from self-isolation leads to concerns over virus variants

Quarantine officials guide people at the arrival hall of Incheon International Airport, April 21. Yonhap

By Lee Hyo-jin

The government will exempt some fully vaccinated travelers to Korea from its mandatory 14-day self-isolation rule beginning next month, but medical experts are expressing concerns that this may lead to an influx of COVID-19 variants from countries where they are becoming predominant.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced Sunday that from July, people who have been fully immunized with vaccines approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), regardless of their nationality, will not be subject to the mandatory self-isolation upon arrival to the country.

Currently, the exemption rule only applies to those who have received the vaccine in Korea.

The ministry said the relaxation is limited to people who enter Korea for important business, or academic, public interest and humanitarian purposes, as well as those visiting direct family members. Two weeks must have passed from their final shot.

Individuals must submit relevant documents such as an application form, vaccination certificate, and family relationship documents to Korean diplomatic missions overseas prior to their travel.

The health authorities noted that travelers from countries with major outbreaks or virus variants are not allowed to skip self-isolation. Nations on this list ― which will be updated monthly ― include South Africa, Malawi, Brazil, Botswana, Tanzania, Mozambique, Bangladesh, Republic of Suriname, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guniea, Chile and Paraguay.

But India and the U.K., where potentially more contagious variants are spreading at an alarming level, were not included, prompting concerns that it would lead to an influx of the mutated virus.

The Delta variant, first detected in India, is known to be three times more transmissible than the original virus and 50 percent more transmissible than the Alpha variant originated from the U.K.

In this regard, experts viewed that lifting self-isolation for travelers from these two countries U.K. is a “premature decision” which may hamper the government's antivirus efforts.

“It is concerning that the two countries are not included on the list,” said Chon Eun-mi, a respiratory disease specialist at Ewha Womans University Medical Center.

“Even though the country's vaccination program is running smoothly, the COVID-19 situation may become similar to the U.K. where daily new cases have surged due to the spread of the mutated virus,” she said.

Peck Kyong-ran, head of the Korean Society of Infectious Diseases, expressed deeper concerns on the Indian variant, as very only little is known about it.

“The government's decision to put the Indian variant in the same category as the U.K. variant, just because we don't know much about its characteristics, has resulted in repeated problems in the country's coronavirus situation,” she wrote on Facebook.

“We should impose stricter measures (against the variant), and ease the rules later only when more data about it becomes available,” she added.