South Korea to end on-arrival Covid test for Chinese travelers as infection rates drop

South Korea is set to lift its mandatory coronavirus testing procedures for arrivals from China, the government announced on Wednesday. The PCR testing rule for Chinese passengers at airports across the country will be dismantled starting March 1, The Korea Herald reported.

The measure will allow Chinese travellers to touch down at airports except for Incheon. With restrictions being lifted, flights will also no longer be suspended, such as those departing from Jeju Island for China or Hong Kong. While the requirements have been eased, travelers from China will still need to submit their negative COVID-19 test results until March 10 and also enroll themselves on Q-Code, a South Korean quarantine information system.

The reason behind the decision, according to South Korean minister Kim Sung-ho, is the steep decline in COVID-19 cases among those arriving from China. "We see that an additional measure to ease quarantine measures appears to be viable," said Kim, the vice minister for disaster and safety management at the Ministry of Interior and Safety.

The third week of February witnessed merely 0.6% of Chinese arrivals in South Korea testing positive for the coronavirus, a sharp fall from the 18.4% figure of the first week of January this year. Overall, the country has experienced a downward trajectory in COVID-19 infections.

In February's third week, the average daily number of new cases in South Korea dropped to 11,599, a 14.4% decrease from last week. The trajectory has been consistently dropping for the past eight weeks. In a briefing, Lim Sook-young, director of the infectious disease crisis response bureau at the Central Disease Control Headquarters, stated that China "has entered into a phase when the virus situation is stabilizing."

Seoul carries out 'easing of quarantine measures'

The latest decision comes two weeks after the South Korean capital of Seoul restarted its issuance of short-term visas for Chinese travellers February 11 onwards, thus lifting its nearly month-long restriction on the issuance due to a spike in infections in China. In response to this, Beijing also lifted countermeasures it had taken due to "discriminatory acts" by Seoul.

"(Seoul) has determined to carry out further easing of quarantine measures on those flying from China, Hong Kong and Macao, in addition to the resumption of a short-term visa issuance and the increase in volume of international flights," Lim said, adding that 
"We will look into the level of virus infection in the next 10 days to determine whether to make it mandatory for China entrants to do Q-Code registration before arrival."