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How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

npr.org

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Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#21

Post by mcsb4 »

Again another article that doesn't even mention the use of masks and hand sanitizer.

The cost of the epidemic now goes into the trillions, self-made cotton masks are cheap compared to the economic damage. They can be disinfected in boiling water and if everybody uses them they will help to stop the spreading of the virus.

In all the countries mentioned in the article people wear masks when in public, often just against pollution (i.e. Thailand).

The moment we open our mouth we spread germs, even more so when we speak. And when we touch our nose or mouth, we have them on our hands.

Thus entering a supermarket without a mask and without first disinfecting the hands should be forbidden.

Social distancing is one thing, stopping the virus at the source is another and seemingly very effective measure.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#22

Post by Zigurd »

m0xte wrote: post #5

So far. I suspect there is a lot of premature celebration when this is contained.

Caution is certainly called for. There will probably be recurring outbreaks.

But, the benefits of widespread testing are there for every nation, at any stage of the pandemic, to access if they have the will and competency in leadership to do it.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#23

Post by rfoo »

mschuster91 wrote: post #10

The thing is, South Korea (and many other Asian countries cited as having handled COVID19 relatively well, such as Taiwan, HK, Singapore, Japan) have all learned from the 2003 SARS epidemic and others, while the Western countries did not. This is not just in terms of politics/preparation to disasters, but also in the civilization - in Asia even the most radical and extreme measures are accepted by the population as e…

Also there was MERS in South Korea (2015), people remember what happened 5 years ago much better than what happened 17 years ago (SARS).

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#24

Post by csomar »

robocat wrote: post #7

Another effing article that completely ignores Taiwan... I’m no taiwanophile, but why is it that a first-world democracy with a successful strategy against Covid is being completely ignored by media? https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 Taiwan has huge flows of Chinese people, yet no outbreak. Maybe it’s a good thing they are not recognised by the WHO?

Another one is Hong Kong. They are tightly packed in a small geographic space, have an active border with China (not sure about it now), and a highly trafficked airport.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#25

Post by royroyroys »

A physician from Korea recently did an AMA on Reddit and said: 'It is hard for anyone to predict what will happen in the future in this volatile situation. However, South Korean experts think that if the situation doesn't get better within the month, it will last up to 6 months. If the situation exacerbates within 6 months, it's apparent that this will become a much more difficult scenario than previously imagined. There would be a high chance of economic repercussions of this outbreak. Moreover, the resources of medical personnel may be entirely exhausted in this situation, which would lead to more deaths. In South Korea alone, 300,000 deaths would be a fair prediction from such a scenario.'[0]

Seems too early to conclude this has been contained yet.

0: https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fo4pj4/im_joon...

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#26

Post by Tepix »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #2

Korea's population followed strict quarantine, and they had testing at a massive scale, matched only by China to this day.

It's not the population that's in quarantine, it's just the few thousand affected people.

There's another thing these countries have in common: Masks are worn by the majority of the people. They may work better than advertised.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#27

Post by adventured »

izacus wrote: post #15
adventured wrote: post #6

So have Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia (440 million people). They've all had fewer cases than Luxembourg so far. I've yet to see a good explanation for it, other than maybe the premise about seasonal temps and humidity (northern vs southern hemisphere). There's no evidence they're massively lying about their numbers (which would show up in the form of a demolished hospital system and thousands dead of pneumo…

I was following Thailand (due to now cancelled trip) and it seemed they used the "turn off monitoring in production" approach to solving this crisis. Meaning - they don't have cases because they weren't testing them and weren't reporting them truthfully.

It's a consideration. However, where is the million dead people that should be happening between these nations given the 440 million people? The virus would be destroying them at this point. We've seen what it can do in Italy, the US, Germany, France, etc. in terms of spreading and hitting ICU units, killing people. It has a 10% mortality rate despite Italy's best efforts, and a 5.7% mortality rate in France (among positive tests). France has an elite healthcare system. So with no testing, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines - they should be falling over and buried in dead people by now. China was being ravaged by it and had to implement extreme measures rapidly.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#28

Post by RaoulP »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #2

Korea's population followed strict quarantine, and they had testing at a massive scale, matched only by China to this day.

On a per-capita basis, other countries are now getting up there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#29

Post by lmilcin »

I think it is an interesting case. It seems that shutting everything down and locking everybody in their homes is still the fastest method.

But if you look at the outcome and impact on entire country investing in aggressive testing and tracking cases seems better return on investment even with higher number of cases.

One potential problem I see with this is locking everything is easier to implement and has less risk that it won't work at all. With a week delay between your actions and the results, not restraining your population and instead hunting cases might put you in a situation where you suddenly learn your actions had no effect and now it is too late for drastic lockdown to rein in the cases.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#30

Post by jlokier »

blauditore wrote: post #13

Testing more thoroughly would also provide us with a better understanding of the virus' properties, like the distribution of symptoms, severities, and mortality rate. I think one of the main reason for general fear and panic has been the alleged high mortality rate, with numbers up to 5% being mentioned. But there's a strong selection bias in those statistics (people with severe cases get tested more often), so the a…

The trouble is, the mortality rate is highly dependent on the degree to which health services are overwhelmed, because the health services are playing such a critical role in keeping people alive for a few weeks until they get better.

To the extent that mortality rate may depend more on transmission rate, health service dynamics and availability of people and equipment than on the disease itself.

This is very different from the mortality rate in a non-pandemic situation.

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