Korea is an advanced society with many strict COVID regulations. You can get a QR code to register your location and sign into restaurants, cafes, stores, and so on. This is extremely efficient in controlling the spread of COVID but has not brought a BIG issue to the front.
As a foreign resident in Korea being vaccinated in America with the Pfizer vaccine in mid-January I feel completely unsafe and forgotten in Korea now.
Due to current COVID regulations, you need a COVID vaccine to go to a karaoke room, restaurant, bar, café, or almost any establishment. Foreign vaccines are not recognized unless you have a quarantine exemption form which you could only get if you had family living in Korea or some specific circumstance. The majority of international students do not have this form. My vaccine is almost one year old now and I am not able to get a booster shot because according to Korea I'd have never been vaccinated. I am quite frustrated with the situation because I have to bring around my small piece of paper and hope that it will be accepted by the restaurant that I'm walking into, but it may not. I have emailed countless people and government officials to get no response on the situation or saying that the KCDC has not thought of even changing the situation. As a foreigner knowing many other foreigners that have been vaccinated in America or the EU none, of us, have a recognized vaccine in Korea even if we got Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, or AstraZeneca months ago.
It's to the point where I am scared that I don't even have any antibodies left to prevent me from getting COVID, but there is no possible way for me to get a booster shot unless the government recognizes that foreigners need help. The government has never recognized anything relating to foreigners in the COVID process. I am extremely worried that it will be months and months and months before I can even register for my vaccine and sign up for a booster shot. By that time I could be at much greater risk of getting COVID or the new easily spreadable variants. I know Korea is handling the COVID situation very well for Koreans, but as a foreigner have been extremely stressed out and left in the dust.