Koreans are famously nonchalant about North Korean nuclear weapons. Bewilderingly to the rest of us, they “keep calm and carry on” whenever Pyongyang threatens to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire”. The South Korean approach to Covid-19 could not have been more different.
On 16 January, the South Korean biotech executive Chun Jong-yoon grasped the reality unfolding in China and directed his lab to work to stem the virus’s inevitable spread; within days, his team developed detection kits now in high demand around the world.
Meanwhile, the South Korean government assumed the virus would hit.
Experience with the 2003 Sars epidemic proved useful: existing governmental units in the ministries of health, welfare and foreign affairs, regional municipalities and the president’s office were mobilised. As a result, South Korea has been effective in controlling the nation’s mortality rate not through travel bans but instead through widespread rigorous quarantine measures and
testing, now even exporting domestically produced test kits – such as the 51,000 diagnostic products sent this week to the United Arab Emirates.
Most importantly, South Korea immediately began testing hundreds of thousands of asymptomatic people, including at drive-through centres.
South Korea employed a central tracking app, Corona 100m, that publicly informs citizens of known cases within 100 metres of where they are. Surprisingly, a culture that has often rebelliously rejected authoritarianism has embraced intrusive measures.
On 17 March, a temporary provision entailed a small subsidy of 454,900 South Korean won (£313) a month to cover basic living expenses. The same funding is available to those who are self-isolating, regardless of whether they test positive for the virus. It’s not hugely generous, but provides subsistence for those whose lives are upended by necessary measures such as the ministry of education’s closure of schools.
Other nations would be wise to copy the South Korean model: on 29 February, 700 people tested positive in the primary South Korean outbreak city of Daegu. By 15 March, 41 new cases were reported there.
