SOUTH KOREA: HOW DID THEY FLATTEN THEIR CURVE and ULTIMATELY, DOES IT EVEN MATTER?

(Just an FYI, an area in Siberia, which normally has temperatures in the 60’s this time of year, just recoded it’s first 100 degree temperature. But climate change is just a hoax, right? I’m going to puke.)

In the early stages of this disease, a few countries were standouts in dealing with this pandemic. Although, they are not “immune” of Covid-19 (pardon the pun), they have managed to slow progression and not overwhelm their systems all while keeping some degree of normalcy. South Korea is one of these standouts.

Despite having the second highest numbers of cases after China early on, S. Korea was able to turn things around very quickly and has had great success. As it stands now, even with their more recent slight resurgence, they have managed to only have had around 300 deaths attributed to covid. That’s 300 compared with the US where we have lost over 110,000. Now their population is much smaller (51 million vs over 300 million) and their geographic landmass is smaller, this translates to a 1 per 100,000 population death rate compared to 37 per 100,000 in the US.

They were able to achieve this because they not only learned from their mistakes, they actually acted on them. They were impacted by SARS-1 and MERS. At that time, in the early 2000’s, their mechanisms of testing and tracing were not good. A key detriment to tracing were the privacy laws which stranglehold many countries, especially ours. We get bent out of shape about privacy and rights, but there is a price for it and we are paying it now. This, in addition to a government which is not willing to take the appropriate steps to protect its citizens, puts the US at a great disadvantage.

In 2015, a bipartisan decision was made to loosen rules about privacy and tracing and although it is not unopposed, the vast majority of S. Koreans accept it as a means of keeping the population in general safer.

Their first case of Covid-19 occurred on January 20th. Ours, by the way, was the next day! Within days of this first case, the government convened the top 20 biotech companies and physicians to brainstorm and to start working on tests. Some of these companies had already started that process independently.

They had a nation-wide, coordinated response with respect to testing, treatment and research. They made the tests free, readily available and fast, often having results within a few minutes. For anyone positive, they were hospitalized if sick or quarantined if not, but all of them were questioned about recent contacts, their credit card and cell phone information was taken and along with such data as closed-circuit video on streets, transit locations and stores and GPS information, within 20 minutes, they had a detailed map of where they travelled in the previous 48 hours. This allowed for rapid identification of potentially affected people and they were monitored closely and tested if and when necessary. They have tested 10x more of their citizens than the US. Still.

PPE has also helped. Many Asian cultures have been wearing masks for decades. Although dealing with their air pollution is part of the rationale (the smog can be so bad that just breathing the air in many large cities, such as Beijing in China, does the equivalent lung and cardiovascular damage as smoking 1 pack of cigarettes a day), they do also have a deep, ingrained feeling of responsibility, not so much in protecting themselves from others, but protecting others from themselves, especially if they are ill.

One last really important fact is that they never actually had a full, forced lockdown. Schools were closed very quickly initially, along with some obvious places where large groups of people might gather, but not much else. People were encouraged to stay and work from home and the reality is that most people did heed that advice, but they were never forced to. They just behaved responsibly.

Until things loosened up. There was a well documented outbreak in which over 100 cases of Covid cases were traced back to one nightclub. No surprise there. Young people who think they are invincible, cooped up and desperate to socialize. Well, very quickly, restrictions were reintroduced and their numbers came back down again.

Recently the EU announced limiting travel from the US. Wouldn’t you? We did it to them back in March. Watching TV, you’d think nothing is wrong over here. People flocking to public spaces in mass numbers without distancing or PPE. Like lemmings going over a cliff! Rising numbers in at least 50% of our states are the clear indicator that we are far away from getting things under control. Once again, ICU beds and ventilators are running out.

DOES IT MATTER?

WON’T WE ALL GET IT ANYWAY?

Probably, but if we can slow it, we can control it’s spread without overwhelming the medical system so people don’t have to die unnecessarily. Slowing it down also gives the scientists time to keep working on a vaccine. Even if it works for a year and this turns into another “flu” necessitating yearly immunizations, that is better than nothing. Slower spread allows businesses to stay open, allowing the economy to at least tread water.

The theory of “just keep things open and let it run its course” has already been shown to not work very well. Sweden had this approach from the beginning and even though Swedes are much more disciplined and follow rules, their death rate per capita is even higher than what we are seeing in the US, and 10x their neil ring countries.

Just be smart and practice safe distancing, PPE and we will all get through this eventually in as safe a manner as is possible.

BTW, many studies have shown that you don’t have to be too paranoid about produce and food containers. You can stop spraying your bananas with Windex!

Stay safe and be well.

AC 😎✌️🌱❤🐖🏃🏻🧘🏻‍♂️🌎😷