President Moon Jae-in has ordered immediate strengthening of quarantine measures on those arriving from overseas to contain the spread of the alarming new COVID-19 variant, omicron. 

Presidential spokesperson Park Kyung-mee said on Tuesday that Moon made the instruction after being briefed on the nation’s first suspect cases of the omicron strain earlier in the day. 

Moon assessed that although analysis on the new variant has yet to be sufficiently conducted, South Korea’s response to the pandemic could reach a critical juncture because of it. 

Moon also ordered officials to swiftly develop testing kits to detect omicron and draft quarantine measures to effectively respond to the new variant. 

The government plans to launch a pan-government task force to discuss measures to prevent the spread of the omicron variant in the country.