Incheon Airport Quarantine Station Confirms Suspicious Patient Sent Home as Positive... Already Moved to Daejeon

Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Intern Reporter Kang Juhee] A patient who was sent home without quarantine measures after specimen collection at the Incheon Airport quarantine station operated by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency was later confirmed positive for the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

According to Daejeon City on the 18th, a man in his 30s, Mr. A, who moved to Daejeon after arriving at Incheon Airport around noon the previous day, was confirmed positive for COVID-19 around 8 p.m.

Mr. A showed suspected COVID-19 symptoms such as fever upon arrival, and the airport quarantine station collected his specimen.

According to regulations, Mr. A should have been quarantined until the test results came out, but the quarantine station instructed him to "quarantine at home."

Mr. A took a bus departing Incheon Airport at 4:30 p.m. to Daejeon, then took a taxi to his sister's house in Yuseong, and was later notified of the positive result and transferred to a negative pressure ward at Chungnam National University Hospital around 11 p.m.

Mr. A had traveled to France, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany since the 5th of last month and returned home, and it was investigated that symptoms appeared from the 2nd of this month while he was in Europe.

Photo by Yonhap News

In response, Daejeon City protested the quarantine station's decision to send him home. The city stated, "We understand that they only told him to wear a mask and sent him home," and added, "If they had notified us that there was a citizen with suspected symptoms, we would have sent an ambulance."

They continued, "When we raised the issue, the quarantine station said, 'The isolation rooms were all full, so it happened that way,'" and criticized, "Proper preliminary measures should have been taken, but they basically handed over a fireball to the region."

Daejeon City health authorities are reviewing bus interior CCTV footage and checking passengers who purchased tickets with credit cards to find passengers who rode the same bus as Mr. A. They are also looking for the taxi driver Mr. A used.

Mr. A wore a mask while moving to Daejeon, informed his sister about his COVID-19 test, and she vacated the house, confirming that there were no close contacts.

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