'Quarantine War'... KDCA is 'Slow and Steady', Goyang City Implements 'Safe Quarantine Pass'

'Safe Quarantine Pass', One-Stop Check from Entry Registration to Vaccination Verification
KCDC's 'Coov', Frequent System Overloads and Errors Increase Public Inconvenience

Goyang City Develops 'Safe Quarantine Pass' [Goyang City]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ra Young-cheol] Goyang City in Gyeonggi Province announced on the 15th that it plans to introduce an upgraded version called the "Safe Quarantine Pass," which allows users to verify everything from entry registration to vaccination confirmation at once, replacing the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s COOV application that frequently experiences system overloads and errors.

Goyang City's "Safe Quarantine Pass" is a vaccine verification system linked with the "Safe Call Entry Management System (080 phone authentication)" that Goyang City first introduced in September last year and has since expanded nationwide.

According to the city, visitors simply call the Safe Call number as before when visiting restaurants or cafes, and a text message confirming vaccination status is sent to their mobile phone, which they only need to show to the business owner.

The Safe Quarantine Pass is a fast and simple method that allows simultaneous entry authentication and vaccination verification within 10 seconds with just one phone call, making it accessible even to vulnerable groups such as the elderly and those who do not use smartphones.

Additionally, tens of thousands of people can authenticate simultaneously without system overload, making it a useful alternative to the existing quarantine pass.

In epidemiological investigations, officials can directly access the system to quickly identify contacts and respond accordingly, which is another advantage.

Earlier, to implement the Safe Quarantine Pass, Goyang City negotiated with KT and others starting in October to fully cover the text message costs, allowing both business owners and visitors to use the service free of charge.

Since Safe Call is already a system widely used nationwide, the city believes there will be no difficulty in expanding the Safe Quarantine Pass across the country and is considering a pilot operation targeting stores within Goyang City.

Mayor Lee Jae-jun of Goyang City stated, "In the current situation where confirmed cases are rapidly increasing, the Safe Quarantine Pass is an efficient system that allows epidemiological investigators to immediately identify and notify contacts without having to visit the site," and added, "We hope the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters will actively consider nationwide expansion of the Safe Quarantine Pass."

Meanwhile, the government’s quarantine pass is currently verified through electronic means (COOV application or QR code), paper vaccination certificates, or PCR negative test certificates.

However, electronic certificates are difficult for vulnerable groups such as the elderly to use, and paper certificates are inconvenient as they must always be carried and risk being lost.

Moreover, since entry registration must be done separately from the quarantine pass, the inconvenience is compounded.

QR codes, which many stores have recently adopted because they allow simultaneous entry registration and vaccination verification, require time for epidemiological investigations.

This is because it takes more than a day to receive information from related agencies, and epidemiological investigators must manually check entry records one by one.

Meanwhile, since the 13th, presenting a "quarantine pass" proving completion of vaccination has been mandatory when visiting restaurants and cafes, but system overloads and errors in the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s system have caused increasing inconvenience and dissatisfaction among the public.

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