MARCH 18, 2020 by Jacques Kim in Mediapart.fr
Translated by Google. Matt Pico contributed the occasional correction, as well as frequent rearrangements for the sake of English cadence. 1.1K words
Thanks to a phenomenal number of tests, monumental tracing efforts, and the civic spirit of its citizens, South Korea has tamed the spread of Covid-19 without closing its stores or quarantining its cities. A resident's report.
We get the numbers every morning. This Thursday, 152 new cases, out of 8,565 total. After four days in a row below 100, that's a jump, but still low compared to before. There are a total of 91 deceased, compared to 264 in France. The mortality rate remains low, around 1% (vs. 8.3% in Italy). And South Korea was once the most impacted country after China.
For the moment, the epidemic is under control, and the country hobbles along. We don't "shelter in place," although schools have been closed since the beginning of March. But shops, bars, and restaurants are open. The roads were not barricaded. Even Daegu, a city of 2.5 million inhabitant, with the most cases in the country, was not placed behind a cordon sanitaire. My children's day care is still open, albeit with smaller classes.
Aside from a shortage of beds in Daegu when the epidemic first struck, the hospitals handled the surge of critically ill patients. South Korea restricted its ties with the outside world but never severed them, even when the epidemic raged in neighboring China.
Factory closings are rare. Public transportation works normally, although bus drivers keep bottles of hydro-alcoholic solution close at hand. Home deliveries have not been interrupted. In recent days, streets, parks and restaurants seem busier.
But strict measures remain in place, for good reason. Since February, all mass gatherings have been prohibited, and sporting events and masses canceled. Some evangelical churches defied the ban - such as the River of Grace Church in the suburbs of Seoul. Fifty-four members have tested positive; the pastor, infected, sprayed salt water in the mouths of his faithful to immunize them. This Wednesday Seoul asked its nationals returning from abroad to remain confined to their home for two weeks.
Telecommuting is taking hold, a small revolution in a country where corporate culture demands a presence in the office. If the government did not take drastic measures, it may be because their instructions for physical distancing were followed from the start. Koreans have drastically limited outings and trips. In the streets, there are few unmasked faces - to refuse to wear one shows a lack of respect for others. There's a bottle of hydro-alcoholic gel in the elevator of my building. It's replaced often.
How to explain these apparent initial successes against Covid-19? In a word, South Korea was ready. Poorly prepared for the MERS epidemic in 2015, it put new contingency plans in place. The country could also rely on a solid industrial base; not everything was relocated to China.
Screening tests are the best readiness example. Starting January 15, the CEO of Seegene, a Korean pharmaceutical company, made developing them top priority. The authorities understood the urgency, and approved the tests in one week, instead of the usual eighteen months. Production started immediately, and the whole company, researchers too, worked the production line.
The result: at the height of the crisis in early March, South Korea tested 18,000 people a day. So far it's tested a total of almost 300,000, more than one in two hundred Koreans. By way of comparison, France performs only 2,500 tests per day, not enough even to protect health care staff.
These tests are crucial, allowing rapid identification of infected persons - in particular asymptomatic cases who transmit the disease without knowing it. Those who test positive are put in home quarantine, and the spread is slowed.
The test is free if prescribed by a doctor, but anyone can get one for the asking. Korea had the brilliant idea of of drive-in test stations, which minimize the risk of transmission. A test costs around $128, with the fee waived if the test comes back positive.
The movements of infected persons are reconstructed using credit card purchases, cell phone records, and surveillance camera footage; then the information is shared via smartphone alerts. My phone rings several times a day to tell me which restaurant in my neighborhood, which store, an infected person has visited, and the date and time. If the person had been to the cinema, the alert includes the seat number.
There have been few protests over breach of privacy. Since the MERS epidemic, Korean law has authorized access to all information necessary to slow an epidemic. There is an encouraging sign in recent days, fewer daily alerts.
The government played the transparency card from the start, providing daily figures for the progression of the epidemic. Most Koreans believe these statistics and trust the authorities. A striking counterexample to the Chinese model: first deny the crisis and persecute whistleblowers; then lockdown a whole province.
The epidemic took hold here because infected members of an evangelical sect did not isolate themselves, resulting in 60% of the South Korean cases. Many of these evangelicals are young, which helps explain the low Korean mortality rate. However, the overwhelming majority of the citizenry respect the social distancing guidelines and submit to quarantine when required.
Masks, which allow a contaminated person to limit the risk of transmission, are readily available but rationed; anyone can buy two per week. And in South Korea, life goes on under the masks. Koreans watched with dismay the carelessness displayed in early March in European capitals. That gathering of Smurf fans, tight against each other, and claiming that "the coronavirus is nothing"; French President Macron, going to the theater March 6 to "encourage the French to go out despite the coronavirus." As if the suffering Chinese and Koreans counted for nothing.
Personally, I hit a wall of misunderstanding trying for weeks to get my family and friends in France to prepare for the worst. "It's just a bad flu," they told me, "stop being anxious. We have a good health system in France." Deep down, we have a Western superiority complex, and looked down on those vaguely underdeveloped Asiatics who had let themselves be overwhelmed. Such contempt will cost us dearly.
Once idealized by Koreans, the West has fallen from its pedestal. The lack of tests, the contempt displayed for two months of warning signals, the Korean students returning from abroad infected, were revelations. The Emperor has no clothes.
Will South Korea itself now be a model, a democratic alternative in the fight against the coronavirus? As opposed to ultra-authoritarian China, which now seeks to use its "success" against Covid-19 to improve its image. Too early to tell.
Especially since South Korea is far from being able to declare victory over the epidemic. There are signs that it's less vigilant, such as fewer masks in the streets. New foci of contamination have appeared: a call center in Seoul, an Evangelical Church in Seongnam, and retirement home in Daegu. On Tuesday, the school closings were extended by two weeks. The crisis may have only just begun.
