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| Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun wearing a face mask attends a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters in Seoul, Saturday. Yonhap |
The government said Saturday that it will use electronic bracelets to tack people who violate self-isolation rules to better contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said the country will seek to get those who break self-isolation regulations wear the bracelets after the number of cases of people breaching self-quarantine in recent weeks has raised concern.
"After much consideration, the government has decided to put electronic bracelets on people who violate self-isolation rules, such as going outside without notice and not answering phone calls," Chung said during a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters in Seoul
"We have listened to quarantine experts and gathered opinions from various communities."
The health authorities said they plan to start using the bracelets within two weeks but will ask permission before actually strapping such a device to their wrist since there are no legal grounds to force people to wear them.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said it expects their active cooperation.
If people under self-isolation break quarantine rules, such as going outside without notice and not responding to health check calls, they will face legal action and will be asked to wear the bracelets for the rest of their quarantine period, according to the KCDC.
The authorities said they have already finished testing the bracelets and can produce 4,000 of them a day.
The device, which the KCDC likes to call a "safe band," will connect with the government's mobile application for people in self-quarantine. If a person damages the device, it will automatically send a notification to the authorities.
In a recent survey of 1,000 adults nationwide, commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 80.2 percent of people supported the idea of using the bracelets to keep track of those under self-quarantine.
However, some have pointed out that such a measure could be a potential human rights violation.
As of Thursday, more than 54,000 people were under self-quarantine. So far, more than 160 people have been caught violating the self-isolation rules. (Yonhap)
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