Government, Will the UK Block the 'Variant Virus'?

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] As a new variant of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spreads in the United Kingdom, more than 50 countries worldwide have imposed entry restrictions on travelers from the UK. Attention is focused on how our government, which showed a lukewarm attitude toward entry restrictions across China during the first wave, will respond.

An official from the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters stated on the 23rd, "Relevant ministries prepared related measures at a meeting held yesterday afternoon." The government plans to finalize and announce these measures at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters meeting this morning.

The variant virus is known to have higher transmissibility than the existing COVID-19 virus. Kwon Jun-wook, Deputy Director of the Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH), said, "According to modeling techniques, the transmissibility appears to be about 57% or 70% higher on average," adding, "This is quite concerning."

Currently, most European countries including France, Germany, and Switzerland, as well as Canada, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Panama, and more than 50 countries worldwide, have successively imposed entry restrictions on the UK. Meanwhile, some express concerns that our government might be standing idly by as it did during the early stages of the domestic COVID-19 outbreak.

In February, when the outbreak spread from Daegu and Gyeongbuk, the government banned entry of all foreigners who had visited Hubei Province, the origin of COVID-19. However, experts had been calling for entry restrictions across all of China since the first confirmed case in Korea on January 20.

At that time, Minister of Health and Welfare Park Neung-hoo sparked controversy by identifying "Koreans coming from China" as the main cause of domestic spread. Minister Park said, "4,000 people enter the country daily from China, of which 1,500 are our nationals," and added, "Even without entry restrictions, we took corresponding measures to reduce the number of entrants from China from 20,000 per day in early January to below 4,000," praising the efforts.

Currently, there are four flights per week arriving from the UK. In the past two months, 15 people arriving from the UK have tested positive for COVID-19, including 11 Koreans and 4 foreigners. However, the government has confirmed that the variant virus has not yet been detected domestically.

Therefore, it is unlikely that the government will immediately impose unprecedented entry restrictions today. Jeong Eun-kyeong, Director of the CDCH, said on the 21st, "Our country implements a two-week quarantine and testing for all arrivals, so basic control measures are in place," and added, "For arrivals from the UK, if a positive test result is found before the end of the two-week quarantine, we are considering monitoring for virus mutations."

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