- MOF Announced Safety Measure on Summer Beach for 2021 -

 

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries(Minister MOON, Seong-Hyeok) announced to establish quarantine measures to prevent further spread of COVID-19 virus, before the earnest opening of summer beaches takes place, as well as implement the measures after a meeting of Central Disaster and Safety Headquarters for COVID-19 scheduled on June 2 (Wednesday).

 

As the summer season is just around the corner, 267 summer beaches will open to the public sequentially from July, starting with the partial opening in June of Haeundae and Songjeong beach in Busan. Compared to last year, this year, summer beaches are likely to be packed with more visitors who wish to relax and find themselves a peace of mind, as the vaccinations have accelerated in the midst of raising concerns over the cluster infections of COVID-19 and the spread of mutant virus.

 

Learnt from last year, MOF has prepared safety measures for this year’s summer beach to minimize inconveniences to visitors and provide more thorough quarantine measures to contain the further spread of COVID-19 virus, via holding concrete discussions with local governments, National Police Agency, Korean Coast Guard Agency, National Fire Agency.

 

【Expand the Scope of Contact-less Smart Protection】

 

For starters, MOF plans to implement quarantine measures in a convenient manner, via introducing safety calls, body temperature stickers, QR Code and etc, to minimize the inconveniences of the visitors as well as promote active participation in complying with the measures.

 

❶ Operation of Safety Call

Given the nature of the summer beach where entry control is hard to be conducted, autonomous cooperation of visitors is vital to make a list of visits. Last year, writing a manual list and certifying QR codes led to much concerns over the possible spread of the virus, leakage of personal information, technical difficulty with QR code management and delay in entry.

 

Therefore, this year, MOF plans to provide ‘Safety Call’ service at beaches across the nation, where visitors are allowed to easily dial designated numbers assigned to each beach without experiencing any inconveniences from last year as well as worrying about infections.

❷ Introduction of Body Temperature Stickers

On top of that, MOF plans to introduce ‘Body Temperature Sticker’ which color differs depending on the temperature of individual body. The sticker is expected to supplement the problems from last year, which caused much delay in waiting lines as every visitor had to wait in a long line to check his/her body temperature to enter the beach. In particular, the sticker will be actively used in beaches with a large number of visitors as well as during weekends and peak seasons to easily and quickly check whether visitors have a fever or not.

The newly-introduced sticker is a simpler version of a thermometer that changes to a different color once attached to body parts such as the back, hand or wrist. It automatically changes the color in real time if the temperature is above 37.5℃, and continues to track the temperature for 24 to 48 hours.

 

Once the color of the sticker changes due to symptoms like fever, the particular visitor will be immediately notified to temporary waiting stations or management offices followed by a series of mandatory measures including reporting to a local medical center and conducting self-confinement.

 

❸ Adoption of Safety Wristband and History Management of Facility Use

In the case of less-crowded beaches, visitors will be initially asked to measure their body temperature. Then they will be asked to wear a wristband during their stay at the beach to show their body temperature have been checked, allowing them to access multi-use complex and facilities such as restaurants. Moreover, everytime they make a visit to these facilities including rental service centers, management offices, shower rooms, the history of their visit and use shall be tracked via QR codes and payment systems.

 

【Disperse the Crowds】

 

Second of all, MOF will expand the operational scope of congestion traffic lights, pre-booking systems, promotion of secluded beaches which were effectively used to prevent concentration of visitors last year.

 

❶ Expanded Introduction of Congestion Traffic Lights Service

The traffic lights service utilized by big-data technology on information and communication indicates congestion level in green(100% or less), yellow(100%~200% or less), red(200% or more) respectively, in comparison to the appropriate number of people. Last year, the service was only conducted in 50 summer beaches, yet this year the ministry plans to proceed the service in every beach across the nation, providing information on congestion to the public so that they can arrange their visiting schedule more conveniently.

* Calculated based on the area required per person(4m2 approximately), to maintain a minimum physical distance of 2m in the sand beach (appropriate number = area of the sand beach m2÷4m2

 

The congestion traffic lights service can be found at portal sites such as NAVER, KAKAO or at BADA Travel(www.seantour.kr).

 

❷ Expansion of Pre-reservation

In conjunction to last year’s pre-booking systems which much satisfied the visitors, MOF plans to expand the scope of pre-booking systems in 50 different summer beaches including 13 in Jeollanam-do, those in Gangwon, Incheon, Gyeongnam, and Gyeongbuk.

 

* According to the visitor survey in 2020, positive response to conducting the pre-booking system in terms of preventing of COVID-19(80.3%), and continuing the systems(86.2%) was reported.

 

In addition, pre-booking was made possible via portal sites such as NAVER and BADA Travel last year, but to address the problems of poor access to BADA Travel, this year, pre-booking is only available via an unified platform, NAVER starting from July 1, allowing the public to have better access to the system.

 

❸ Enhancement of Operation on Allocation System on Site

Except for the pre-booking summer beaches, in the case of the other beaches, such as the ones near cities or larger beaches, there will be parasols assigned in every 2m distance to prevent possible density on site and to help visitors follow the safety measures during their stay.

 

❹ Constant Promotion to Achieve Secluded Beach

Moreover, given the effect to prevent concentration of travelers through designating 23 beaches as ‘Secluded Beach’ last year, where only few people visited with less density and possibility of contact, higher convenience and stunning view, MOF plans to designate additional 50 beaches as ‘Secluded Beach’, allowing visitors to safely relax at a less-crowded summer beach.

 

* The proportion of beach visitors has more than doubled in 2020, compared to the year before, thanks to the promotion of ‘secluded beach’.

 

MOF and relevant agencies will actively encourage visitors to comply to the quarantine measures at the beach, introduce the measures at train stations, highway rest stops and via portal sites to help visitors to fully enjoy the summer beaches as well as continue to guide the visitors on site to thoroughly follow the measures by utilizing necessary tools such as drones.

 

Particularly, incentives will be given to encourage visitors to spend their vacation at pre-booking or secluded beaches rather than crowded beaches such as Haeundae and Gwangalli by providing discounts on their trips to neighboring fishing communities and etc.

 

The ministry will advise local governments that manage the beach sites to ban drinking and outdoor eating at night hours at large beaches with higher chances of COVID-19 infections, and strengthen on-site inspections by airing out and disinfecting multi-use facilities on a regular basis, to implement thorough preventive measures in those facilities.

 

Deputy Minister Song Sang-Keun for Marine Policy Office citied, "as the pro-longed COVID-19 pandemic has given a lot of people much fatigue, more visitors are likely to spend their vacation at the summer beach. Accordingly, the ministry will spare no effort to conduct thorough quarantine measures to help the visitors enjoy the beach safely.", and he also added "active participation of the public is much needed to achieve successful quarantine systems at the beach, thus I kindly ask fellow Koreans to comply with the quarantine measures when visiting the summer beach"