[이미지출처=연합뉴스]
[아시아경제 조현의 기자] With the spread of the new coronavirus (Corona 19) mutant virus in the UK, more than 50 countries around the world have taken measures to depart from the UK, and the Korean government has also decided to temporarily suspend flights with the UK by the end of the year. At the time of the first pandemic, the government, which showed a lukewarm attitude to the limit of entry across China, took first steps to counter the mutant virus, which has higher transmission power than the existing virus.
Yoon Tae-ho, head of the Central Accident Response Headquarters, said on the 23rd, “We will temporarily suspend flights with the UK from today to the 31st.”
Government-related ministries prepared such a countermeasure at a meeting in the afternoon the previous day. In addition to the temporary suspension of flight operations, the issuance of quarantine exemptions by our missions in the UK will be suspended, and additional gene amplification (PCR) tests will be conducted after two weeks of quarantine removal for all arriving from the UK.
Immigration quarantine is also strengthened. “The heating standard is adjusted from 37.5 degrees to 37.3 degrees, and the flight attendant performs a full diagnostic test.”
It is explained that it will be possible to control the case of entering the country through other countries after visiting the UK. “Since most European countries are taking preliminary measures, such as restrictions on entry, there will be quite a few cases that are filtered out,” said Yun. He added, “Even if you go through a country that doesn’t, it will be possible to control it within the quarantine network because Korea basically takes quarantine measures for 14 days.”
The mutant virus is known to have higher transmission power than the existing Corona 19 virus. For this reason, most of the European countries such as France, Germany, Switzerland and 50 countries around the world such as Canada, Hong Kong, India, Israel and Panama have entered the international limit one after another.
Some were concerned that the government was initially backing up as in the early days of the Corona 19 crisis in Korea. The government banned entry of all foreigners who visited Hubei Province, the source of Corona 19 at the time of the spread from Daegu and Gyeongbuk in February. However, experts have been demanding a limit for entry across China since January 20, when the first confirmed case in Korea was announced. At the time, the Minister of Health and Welfare Park Neung-hoo was controversial as he cited’Koreans from China’ as the main cause of the domestic spread.
Currently, there are four flights a week to the UK. In the last two months, 15 of those arriving from the UK have been confirmed. There are 11 Koreans and 4 foreigners. It was found that the mutant virus has not yet been discovered in Korea. The quarantine authorities said, “Out of 1600 cases of virus gene analysis, the corresponding mutant virus reported in the UK was not found.”
Reporter Jo Hyun’s [email protected]