[Report] Boarding the Korea-China Connecting Flight During COVID-19... Uncomfortable Fingerprint Recognition Without Masks

- Suspicious fingerprint recognition at arrival hall... Infection status relies on thermal detection and health condition checks

On the evening of the 23rd, passengers lined up to submit health declaration forms before entering the immigration checkpoint after a flight from Incheon landed at Beijing Capital International Airport. The declaration form consists of questions asking for personal information such as name, date of birth, passport number, and mobile phone number, as well as flight number and seat, whether they visited Hubei Province before entering, and whether they have any abnormal symptoms.

[Asia Economy Beijing=Special Correspondent Sunmi Park] "Please take off your mask. Press with the four fingers of your left hand."

At 8:20 p.m. on the 23rd (local time), the arrival hall at Beijing Capital International Airport, where I arrived on a flight from Incheon to Beijing, was quiet without any waiting lines due to the spread of COVID-19. Since the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) spread throughout China last month, resulting in 77,000 confirmed cases and over 2,400 deaths, people have been refraining from entering China. Although the sparse atmosphere eased concerns about close contact between people, I was momentarily startled when I immediately heard a Korean voice saying, "Press with the four fingers of your left hand."

How much has China strengthened its quarantine measures so far?

In front of the immigration inspection desk, I took off my mask to show my face and placed the four fingers of my left hand, excluding the thumb, on the fingerprint recognition screen. However, clear fingerprint marks, possibly left by someone at an unknown time, remained on the screen. There were no tissues to wipe the screen or hand sanitizers to clean hands after fingerprint recognition. At Incheon Airport's departure hall, hand sanitizer was provided to clean the right index finger after recognition, so I realized that China's recognition process had not significantly changed.

It took only 20 minutes from the arrival of the flight from Incheon at Beijing Airport until exiting the arrival hall. The only place where passengers' movements were delayed was just before entering the arrival hall, where two staff members wearing masks and protective goggles collected health declaration forms filled out by the passengers themselves.

The health declaration form consists of questions about personal information such as name, date of birth, passport number, mobile phone number, flight number and seat, whether the passenger visited Hubei Province before entering, and the presence of any abnormal symptoms. Since there is no separate verification process, even if personal information and boarding details are falsely filled out, the possibility of being filtered out is low. Fever checks were limited to passing through a passage equipped with a thermal camera before entering the immigration inspection desk after submitting the declaration form.

Rather, it was only upon arriving at Beijing Airport that I realized how thorough airport quarantine was in Korea. When I arrived at Incheon Airport on the 15th on a flight from Beijing, staff dressed in white protective suits, wearing masks and protective goggles, checked each passenger's temperature and individually asked about symptoms in addition to collecting health declaration forms. There was also meticulousness in verifying the authenticity of Korean mobile phone numbers recorded on the health declaration forms, with staff making direct phone calls on site. All passengers arriving from China had the Ministry of Health and Welfare's self-diagnosis application (app) installed on their mobile phones, and upon launching the app, a screen appeared showing 'Location Information ON' and allowing daily submission of self-diagnosis items.

The expressions of passengers entering China, where the COVID-19 outbreak is the most severe worldwide, mostly appeared dark as if they were worried about gaps in the government's COVID-19 quarantine measures. Although masks were worn, it was easy to see people maintaining a certain distance even among acquaintances and refraining from conversation. Some passengers wore not only masks but also protective goggles and disposable gloves. People wrapped their entire bodies in raincoats or even covered their hair with transparent plastic bags were also noticeable.

Meanwhile, a notice from the Foreign Affairs Office of the Beijing Municipal People's Government was delivered to the front door of my residence in Beijing, where I had been away for a week. It stated that Beijing City had activated a Level 1 emergency public health response system as of January 24 and urged active cooperation with various government quarantine measures and prompt testing and treatment if any abnormal symptoms are detected.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.