Starting Wednesday, South Korea will require negative COVID-19 PCR tests for all arriving travelers, including South Korean nationals, in an effort to prevent the spread of variant strains.

Foreigners cannot enter the country without presenting papers showing a negative polymerase chain reaction test. Korean nationals without the papers will be required to take the test at state-designated facilities and quarantine for 14 days at their own expense. 
 
The nation's quarantine authorities began to enforce the measures to block the inflow of coronavirus variants. Previously negative test results were only required for arriving foreign nationals.

As of Tuesday, 128 cases of variant infections have been reported in South Korea.