How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

I just checked the South Korea statistics, and they continue to have good results from their strategy.

This article also mentioned that Singapore had good results from their handling of the virus, but I found that since the time of this article, the number of new cases have gone up sharply.

When I did a google search for : south korea covid-19 statistics
it returned a graph for number of new reported per day since about the beginning of March, which is selectible by country.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/26/821688981/how-south-korea-reigned-in-the-outbreak-without-shutting-everything-down?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2obo6R4LoW6I5ey8hTJ9OSZ7CAV71wS86J8bD32QljoqkldrvUR-h2DyA

Jason Beaubien
March 26, 2020

As of this week, South Korea had just over 9,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, which puts it among the top 10 countries for total cases.

But South Korea has another distinction: Health experts are noting that recently the nation has managed to significantly slow the number of new cases. And the country appears to have reined in the outbreak without some of the strict lockdown strategies deployed elsewhere in the world.

"We've seen examples in places like Singapore and [South] Korea, where governments haven't had to shut everything down," said Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme. "They've been able to make tactical decisions regarding schools, tactical decisions regarding movements, and been able to move forward without some of the draconian measures."

Speaking this week to journalists, Ryan said that countries that have tested widely for the virus, isolated cases and quarantined suspected cases — in the way that South Korea and Singapore have done — have managed to suppress transmission of the virus. President Trump has also praised South Korea's handling of the health crisis and even asked President Moon Jae-in for help with medical equipment to fight the outbreak in the United States.

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"In mid-January, our health authorities quickly conferred with the research institutions here [to develop a test]," Kang said. "And then they shared that result with the pharmaceutical companies, who then produced the reagent [chemical] and the equipment needed for the testing."

So when members of a religious sect in Daegu started getting sick in February, South Korea was able to rapidly confirm that it was COVID-19.

"Testing is central" to the outbreak response, said Kang, "because that leads to early detection. It minimizes further spread." And it allows health authorities to quickly isolate and treat those found with the virus.

Hong Kong and Singapore have followed similar paths in responding to this outbreak.

They've used testing aggressively to identify cases — not only testing people who are so sick that they're hospitalized but also mild cases and even suspected cases. They've quarantined tens of thousands of people who may have been exposed to confirmed cases.

The vast majority of the people ordered to quarantine at home are perfectly healthy and never do get sick, but the few who do develop symptoms can be quickly isolated further. Tedros of the WHO refers to this as cutting off the virus at the bud — basically stopping the virus from spreading further and preventing community transmission.

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