South Korean clubs will use QR codes to log visitors amid coronavirus

South Korea will now require places like nightclubs and bars to use QR codes to log customers’ visits as part of its coronavirus contact tracing efforts.

Starting next month, those types of establishments, which the government deems high risk, will be required to use the app-based register in order make it easier to track down potential COVID-19-infected patients.

Officials said the move was made after infected patients submitted false personal information.

“Over the course of tracking down patients linked to the Itaewon clubs [in Seoul], the government experienced difficulties because many of them made false statements about their personal details in the visitor logs,” South Korea’s health minister Park Neung-hoo said Sunday, according to the South Korean Yonhap News Agency.

“We have decided to adopt an electronic register using QR codes so as to collect accurate data on visitors and operate a swift quarantine system,” the health minister said.

The area of Itaewon has become a new hotbed for the bug after a 29-year-old man tested positive for the virus on May 6 following his jaunts to clubs and bars in the neighborhood known for its nightlife, the news agency reported.

Other “high risk” establishments must also use the electronic system to track visitors.

The QR code register will only be used when the infectious disease alert level is raised to “serious” or “cautionary,” according to the news agency.

The government will test-run the system until mid-June before it officially launches.

The deadly virus has infected more than 11,200 in South Korea and has killed 267 people in the East Asian country as of Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.