Quarantine for overseas arrivals will be exempted from March 21st. (★However, visas for tourism purposes are required★)

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters announced at a regular briefing on the 11th, "From Monday, March 21st, the 7-day quarantine implemented for all arrivals will be exempted for those who have completed vaccination domestically or overseas and have registered their vaccination history." and "From Friday, April 1st, quarantine will be exempted for those who have been vaccinated overseas but have not registered their vaccination history."

Even if vaccination is completed overseas, if the vaccination history has already been registered in Korea and confirmed through the Quarantine Information Pre-entry System (Q-CODE), it will be applied as a domestically registered vaccination completion. For domestically unvaccinated individuals whose vaccination history has not been confirmed, quarantine exemption will be possible from April 1st by directly entering their vaccination history through the pre-entry system and attaching a certificate. Unvaccinated individuals will be quarantined as before. Specifically, Korean nationals and long-term foreign residents will undergo self-quarantine, while short-term foreign visitors will be placed in a facility.

On the other hand, confirmation of vaccination history upon entry will be conducted using the "Pre-entry System," which will be expanded to all routes arriving at Incheon Airport from March 21st. For those vaccinated domestically or those who have registered their vaccination history after overseas vaccination, the relevant information will be automatically linked through the COOV system (Corona 19 Vaccination Certificate System) linked with the pre-entry system.

The diagnostic tests, currently conducted three times for all arrivals (before entry, on the 1st day after entry, and on the 6th-7th day after entry), have been simplified from the 10th of this month, allowing for rapid antigen tests on the 6th-7th day after entry. Those subject to self-quarantine and those exempt from quarantine can choose between self-testing, medical institutions, or screening clinics for rapid antigen tests. Those subject to facility quarantine will maintain the current PCR testing to facilitate entry and exit procedures and integrated testing.

Individuals eligible for quarantine exemption under these measures are those who have passed 14 days after their second dose (one dose for Janssen) and are within 180 days, or those who have received a third dose, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Use Listing (EUL) vaccination completion criteria. The vaccine types include Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen, Novavax, Sinopharm (Beijing), Sinovac, Covishield, Covovax, and Covovax, totaling 10 types.

However, considering the risk level of each country of origin and the burden on domestic quarantine measures, individuals entering from high-risk countries may still be subject to quarantine even if they have completed vaccination. Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and Myanmar have been designated as countries exempt from quarantine exemption, and even those who have completed vaccination will be quarantined. For these countries, the expansion of flight routes and frequencies, and the issuance of visas will be gradually eased considering the quarantine situation due to the increase in arrivals.

The use of quarantine transportation networks (cars, quarantine taxis, KTX dedicated cars) after entry will be discontinued from April 1st, considering the burden on local governments due to the domestic quarantine situation, and all arrivals will use public transportation.

The government stated, "While implementing eased quarantine measures for overseas arrivals, we will closely monitor the emergence of new variants of concern and maintain close consultation with relevant ministries to swiftly re-implement strengthened measures for overseas arrivals if necessary to block the inflow of new variants."

Article Source: ⓒedaily

These are English translations of articles from our GTTOUR Japanese website.