South Korea’s capital has ordered hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, as well as their employers, to undergo COVID-19 tests or face fines running into thousands of US dollars, officials said yesterday.
The policy comes despite criticism that a similarly sweeping program in a neighboring province was xenophobic and discriminatory.
Starting today, Seoul is to issue a 15-day administrative order for testing on employers of at least one foreign worker, as well as the foreign workers, said Park Yoo-mi, a city quarantine officer.
“We will make COVID-19 diagnostic tests mandatory for foreign workers to pre-emptively head off the spread of infection,” she told a news briefing.
Last week, Gyeonggi Province drew flak for a similar order after at least 275 foreigners tested positive.
South Korea said that infections among foreign workers presented a high-risk situation, but it has not provided detailed numbers.
National health official Yoon Tae-ho told a briefing that mass testing at nearly 1,646 workplaces in the greater Seoul area and the province of Chungcheong that employ foreign workers had found no confirmed cases.
Seoul had 242,623 registered foreign workers as of December last year, the South Korean Ministry of Justice said.
However, Seoul officials said that there might be as many as 390,000, if undocumented workers are included.
Some foreigners questioned the basis of the order.
J.D. McPherson, who runs a Korean food blog and tour business, said that such orders strike a nerve for foreign residents who have previously felt singled out, such as when shops posted signs banning them or they were denied free protective masks.
“They don’t like being painted with a monolithic paintbrush, that if one small cluster gets the disease then the entire populace may have it,” he said.
“With that logic, then if one Christian church has an outbreak all Christians should get tested,” he added.
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