Korea to Scrap COVID Tests Before Arrival

Korea will no longer require travelers to show proof of a negative COVID test on arrival from abroad after the Chuseok holiday.

"We're going to scrap pre-boarding COVID testing for travelers regardless of their countries of departure," a health official said Sunday. "Further details will be discussed among health professionals and other experts to come up with guidelines depending on vaccination or whether their country of departure is still at high risk."

"We believe that pre-boarding PCR testing should be scrapped because it's currently possible to monitor high-risk countries in real time and we should also respect the principle of reciprocity," the official added.

Currently travelers must submit a certificate of a PCR test taken within 48 hours before departure or a rapid antigen test taken within 24 hours prior to departure, but that is costly and inconvenient and has put many foreign travelers off.

Except for Japan, which only admits tour groups, none of the other OECD countries require pre-flight COVID tests for travelers who have been vaccinated at least three times.

According to Our World in Data on Sunday, Korea ranked near the top of the list of COVID infections at 2,049 per 1 million population as of last Saturday, probably because there is still a lot of testing going on.

On Monday morning the daily tally of new infections stood at 43,142.