South Korea will use wristbands to track people who defy quarantine orders. Officials announced yesterday that some of the 57,000 people ordered to self-isolate may have left smartphones with tracking apps at home.
Plans for a wider roll-out of the wristbands were scrapped following backlash from human rights groups and legal activists. The government has also urged Christians to stay home over Easter.
South Korean officials say that despite privacy concerns, the wristbands are necessary. They say the number of people under self-isolation rose rapidly after the country introduced compulsary two-week quarantine for anyone arriving from abroad from 1 April .
The wristbands communicate with tracking apps installed on smartphones through Bluetooth and alert officials if the wearers leave home or try to destroy or remove them.
South Korea’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said at least 886 of the country’s coronavirus infections came from international arrivals.
South Korea has aggressively tested, traced and treated since the outbreak without the need for lockdowns and is one of the few countries that has managed to flatten the coronavirus curve.
Some say this is due to South Korea’s experience of having dealt with previous epidemics such as Sars, as well as the quality of its health system. So far there have been 10,480 coronavirus cases and 211 deaths.
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