What South Korea's coronavirus strategy can teach the world

South Korea was one of the first countries to record a majorCovid-19 outbreak but its number of reported cases has since fallen drastically. Here's what we can know from his response.
"Test, test, test," Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, asked countries to combat the novel coronavirus at a press conference on 16 March. "You can't fight this fire blindfolded." The United Kingdom seems to have actually heeded this advice, announcing plans for theCovid-19 test on March 19 to 25,000 a day.
Korea's epidemic started like that of Italy, with a steady trickle of cases quickly transforming into a drastic escalation. Throughout the months following China's first reports of the virus, the country remained small–just thirty infections had been registered when a woman went to a hospital throughout Daegu, the country's fourth largest city, on February 18. It became clear that this woman, who was dubbed "Patient 31" and is a member of the quasi-Christian religion, the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, had been ill for some time and had repeatedly ignored pleas to be examined.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were swift to announce that 9,300 people attending the two Shincheonji church services alongside patients 31 and 1,200 are now talking about flu-like symptoms. Over the next few days, hundreds should have tested positive. During the 10-day duration at the end of February, cases were more than 5,000.
However, as of 19 March, South Korea, where the cumulative outbreak was 8,652 cases and 94 deaths, now has a case-rate of relative decline. Just 93 new cases were registered on 18 March (though numbers rose again on 19, to 152). In the worst stretch of February, Korean officials recorded more than 900 cases a day.
The backbone of Korea's success was rapid, unruly testing, followed by stringent contact tracking, and the quarantine of everyone the carrier has come into contact with. As of March 19, the nation carried out more than 307,000 studies, the highest per capita in the world. 64,600 have been collected by the United Kingdom; even fewer so by the United States. "You have countries like the US right now, where there are relatively stringent standards on who can be checked," says Kee Park, a lecturer on public health at Harvard Medical School. "I personally know people that have symptoms that are extremely alarming, but they don't follow all the guidelines, so they're not being checked."

The response has merged with Korean technical innovation, Park states. "Koreans are very good at making it easy for people–we don't have much patience," he says. "South Korea is one of the most wired countries in the world, where everyone uses mobile phones for just about everything, and [the government] has been able to use our cell phones not just to monitor but also to send alerts, such as' look out, there's aCovid-19 patient in your neighborhood.'"
The Korean community, shocked by the incident, is also more likely to wash their hands, stay at home and get checked if requested. "Research like this has been really effective in coping with HIV, for example, in stopping it from spreading and moving on," says Mina. "There have been major campaigns to test people and see if they recognize their role, and then to act accordingly."
Understanding who is a carrier eliminates the need for more restrictive security interventions, such as lockdowns. "When everyone remains in their room and doesn't go outside at all, which is the Chinese method, it is also very effective in minimizing transmission," says Martin Hibberd, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "But in the absence of such an strategy, I think that recognizing who is optimistic and ensuring that they are quarantined is obviously a very successful way."
This may also have been inefficient. "At one point, about 25.000 studies have recently been performed in the United Kingdom to identify only 456 cases," says Julii Brainard of Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia. "Basically, 98% of those with signs or history of touch did not haveCovid-19. Testing was clearly costly, taking time and money, but not especially successful in Britain.
The trade-off between public health and civil rights has been one of the big deals that South Korea has had to make and that the United Kingdom will soon be grappling with. Not just the restriction of travel–the cancelation of schools; homework; the end of mass meetings–but also the loss of privacy. "I'm biased because I'm a public health professional, but you have to tolerate certain deprivation of personal freedoms and privileges for the good of the whole population," Park says. "You can't have a social gap, for example, if 10% of the population decides' I'm not going to do that' –the whole thing falls apart."