South Korea’s novel coronavirus outbreak once looked grim, with new cases skyrocketing daily and a massive cluster of infections, making it the worst-hit country outside China.
The disease suddenly exploded in South Korea on Feb. 18. The caseload multiplied 180-fold in two weeks, with daily cases topping 909 on Feb. 29. But the troubling trend quickly reversed. From March 6, South Korea began reporting declining numbers of new cases, with daily increases dropping to the dozens. As of Monday, South Korea had recorded 9,786 infections.
Elsewhere, the COVID-19 crisis has grown worse. In the U.S., where the first case was detected on Jan. 20 — the same day as South Korea — total infections exceeded 163,000 on March 31, with at least 2,860 deaths. In Spain, total cases hit 85,195, adding more than 6,398 overnight. In Italy, the new hot spot of the outbreak, infections surpassed 101,000 with more than 11,000 fatalities.
Globally, more than 857,000 people have contracted COVID-19, and 42,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. To stop the viral spread, governments are turning to draconian measures, from locking down cities to closing borders.
But South Korea has shown there is another way to bring the disease under control. Businesses across the country have largely carried on, and no city has been locked down. With new cases declining, life in South Korea is returning to normal.
More importantly, the country has one of the world’s lowest fatality rates at just 1%, compared with the 3.4% global rate estimated by the World Health Organization in early March.
Korean officials attribute this to a strategy called TRUST: transparency; robust screening and quarantine; unique but universally applicable testing and; strict control and treatment.
South Korea learned the importance of preparedness the hard way after the 2015 outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome. A single imported case of MERS spurred a chain of transmissions that infected 186 and killed 36. Nearly 17,000 people were quarantined, and the government was harshly criticized for its slow response.
As COVID-19 emerged in China late last year, South Korea started mobilizing resources for an outbreak. The country tested for the virus at the fastest pace in the world, enabling early detection, effective isolation and timely treatment to reduce deaths.
Its introduction of drive-through test stations, which allow health workers to take swabs to test for the virus without people leaving their cars, is now being copied by other countries, including Canada, Germany and the U.S.
Nikkei Inc.