South Korea will drop its quarantine requirement for international visitors from 21 March, provided they are fully vaccinated.
The news was delivered by the South Korean Health Ministry on Friday, just a day before the country recorded an all-time high of 383,665 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday.
Until now, all visitor arrivals have been required to enter into mandatory 7-day self-quarantine, however the requirement will be dropped starting next week for anyone who is fully vaccinated and has registered their details with local authorities. South Korea considers anyone to be full vaccinated if they have received their second dose of a recognized COVID-19 vaccine at least two weeks but less than 180 days prior to visiting.
Quarantine will still apply, however, to arrivals from four countries – Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Myanmar.
Arrivals from all other countries who qualify to skip self-quarantine will be required to take rapid antigen tests on the sixth and seventh days after arriving.
The news will be welcomed by South Korea’s 16 foreigner-only casinos, which saw combined casino revenue fall 31.9% year-on-year in 2021 to just KRW407.13 billion (US$328 million). The 2021 figure was also 71.9% lower than 2019 when foreigner-only casino revenue was KRW1.45 trillion (US$1.17 billion).
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