Last night I was gleaning the reports from South Korea to find out how their practices are the same as our and different than ours. What can we learn from their success? What were their challenges?
At the time of writing the article below, S.Korea had the highest incidence of CoV19 outside of China. The writer divides his findings into the Good, the Bad. and the Ugly.
The Good included having a consistent standard operating procedure (SOP). This was carried out in five steps:
-an aggressive and transparent information campaign
-high volume testing
-quarantine of infected individuals
-treatment of those in need
-and disinfection of contaminated environments
The information campaign was constant, over all media, and gave clarity to what the people needed to do. It helped prevent misinformation and unhelpful practices.
The Bad was that S. Korea experienced their own group of people who would not comply. They were mostly seniors who were suspicious of the SOP, with low science literacy, and with strong political and religious leanings that came into conflict with the SOP. It was interesting in that the younger people were called upon to assist the seniors in compliance.
The Ugly consisted of politicization of the outbreak in the media. S. Korea was on the cusp of an election (held April 15th). Negative political coverage made compliance to the SOP more difficult.
One thing S. Korea learned was that it was vital to bring the religious leaders into the discussion well before an outbreak and to garner their cooperation with containment efforts.
Lessons From South Korea’s COVID-19 Outbreak: The Good, Bad, and Ugly
