Chinese COVID Patient Caught After Fleeing Quarantine

A Chinese man who escaped a quarantine facility after testing positive for COVID-19 on arrival in Korea was caught in Seoul two days later on Thursday.

He had checked into a hotel in downtown Seoul with his wife, who tested negative, and was taken back to a quarantine facility in Incheon.

Some 246 travelers from China tested positive over the past week, accounting for 42 percent of all COVID cases among overseas arrivals. The proportion is small compared to about 60,000 new infections reported domestically in Korea every day but could keep rising as more tourists arrive from China.

But there are still hopes that the indoor mask mandate can be lifted after the Lunar New Year. "COVID is on the way to becoming endemic, so we're mulling options to ease the mandate," a government official said.

The only variable is how many infections will be found after the annual mass migration to ancestral hometowns over the country's one of the biggest holidays from Jan. 21 to 24.