The COVID 19 outbreak
During the COVID 19 outbreak, South Korea was one of the countries got affected by the disease. By now there are 10738 total cases in Korea, but daily new cases have already dropped to less than 15 per day. Korea was able to react to the virus outbreak quickly. Unlike China which implemented aggressive measures such as lockdowns and stay at home orders, South Korea mounted a trace, test, and treat strategy.
One of the reasons Korea is able to control the outbreak is its complete healthcare system and implementation of drive-through Testing which is fast and free. The drive through testing only takes 10 minutes at most and unnecessary interaction with other people is completed avoided. People will receive text results through texts, usually the next day. South Korea government officials have a very different approach compare to China they said: “it’s much better to test and then quarantine a specific person than to do a citywide or provincewide lockdown, which in certain ways prevents the virus from leaving the province but actually doesn’t make the province any less likely to have high infection rates.” The drive through testing centers’ daily capacity is 15000, Korea has conducted 3600 tests per million people compared to five per million in the U.S
report on the drive-through testing center
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX3-KXWmzzs
Another thing Korea implement is the tracing strategy. Korea utilized the country’s advanced information technology system for tracing individuals suspected to be infected or who had been in contact with an infected person. However, the tracing strategy is criticized by the U.S media for privacy issues. The IT-based epidemic containment strategies could include documentation, modeling, and contact tracing. To engage in the documentation, the Korean government developed a customized app for quarantined individuals and requited them to report their health status on a regular basis, and with aggregated location data. The app will also report the people who had been in contact with an infected individual. However, western society always prioritizes freedom over safety which is the tracing strategy’s biggest problems.
documentary of Asian countries' response to COVID 19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wox36bFDqE&t=739s
I am really amazed at how Korea was able to control the virus without a major citywide lockdown. The Drive through the testing center is very innovative, people do not have to stay in line with other people in order to get their testing down. South Korea also has a very good healthcare system for most citizens. Having access to a hospital without worry about the hospital bill is one reason that the death rate in Korea is really low. I also believed many other countries should adopt the tracing strategy. Sharing the location of the infected individuals not only prevent other people but also themselves to be infected. There are many cases in the world that infected individuals risking other people’s life because they do not want to share their travel history. I think the Korea government did the right thing.
Replies
Hi Sam!
I've also been reading about drive-through testing in Korea and how efficient it could be. The U.S. has also been following this model for a while. I think the tracing strategy is also a very effective one, but as you said, it would be hard to enforce in the U.S. Recently I heard that people are developing similar sites and apps here for tracing purposes, so hopefully that will help. Thanks for sharing this!
Hi Sam!
This post is certainly very relevant to all of us and the world right now! I have mostly been following the COVID-19 outbreak only in the US so it was great to learn about it in your post. Thank you for educating me! It is so great to see that Korea has less than 15 new cases per day which is a wildly different number than the numbers in the US right now. I also liked reading about the "trace, test, and treat" strategy that seems to be very effective. I do not know anything about the Korean healthcare system so it was nice to get a small peek into it from your post. When you say Korea has a "complete healthcare system" do you mean that it has universal healthcare?
It is also crazy to see the stark difference in the number of tests in Korea compared to the US. I also didn't know that Korea was using technology so much to trace the virus but it has proven to be helpful. I thought that difference in strategy boils down to what is culturally acceptable was interesting too. The app is a great idea and my sister is actually working on a project right now in the US to develop an app to trace the virus. Thank you for the informative post, Sam!