This sounds more like a political campaign event for everyone involved to show they are “doing something” especially for President Moon who faces a parliamentary election in April:
President Moon Jae-in is seeking a summit to come up with international cooperation in COVID-19 responses, actively pushing for a G20 teleconference over the issue.
Korea Times
The proposal comes as the number of novel coronavirus infections is spiking across the world, and has gained backing from key members such as France and the U.S., according to Cheong Wa Dae.
During a March 13 phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, President Moon proposed that they seek a teleconference among G20 members, which the former agreed to, the presidential office said.
You can read more at the link, but I find it hard to believe that health authorities around the world can’t work together on the coronavirus issue without a G-20 meeting.
It seems that South Korea has reached the stage where authorities are quickly reacting to cluster infections of the coronavirus before they become major outbreaks like we saw in Daegu:
Another cluster transmission of the new coronavirus has infected 40 followers of a protestant church in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, municipal government said Monday, raising an alarm bell on the steady spread of cluster infections in the capital area.
The city government of Seongnam said 40 members of Grace River Church, including the pastor and his wife, have tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a Sunday service about a week ago.
Six other people who had come into contact with the infected church members have also been confirmed as coronavirus patients, it noted.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
I have noticed more articles in the U.S. media highlighting South Korea’s success testing for the coronavirus:
Dr. Ogan Gurel, who got his medical degree from Columbia in New York and moved to Seoul 10 years ago, cites drive-by testing as one of “a panoply of measures” designed to stop the virus from overwhelming this country of 51 million people.
“There is no silver bullet,” says Gurel, who teaches medicine and provides scientific advice. “Individually, people might suffer, but in aggregate they end up with qualitative stabilization.” That is to say, for the overall population the disease is brought under control.
The proof is in the numbers showing new cases in South Korea decreasing steadily–just 110 on Thursday, the lowest in more than two weeks, while 177 were declared cured and sent home. All told, the number of cases totals 7,979, but the general feeling sense is the worst is over.
“Korea is setting a good example for the U.S.,” said Jang Sung-eun, who still rides the subways to work every day while many of her colleagues try to work from home. “They say we Koreans are rather effective in dealing with the problem.”
Such guarded optimism reflects a discernible shift in national mood from the near-panic that engulfed the country after the virus was discovered to be emanating from a church in the city of Daegu, 170 miles southeast of Seoul. The church was one of dozens run by the secretive Shincheonji sect, whose leader, Lee Man-hee, has proclaimed himself the embodiment of Jesus Christ.
“There was some resistance among them to testing,” says Gurel, but by now almost all the sect’s 230,000 members have been checked. Most of those suffering from the disease were members of the church or caught the virus from members who may have passed it on through two or three others, who in turn transmitted it to still more contacts.
Korean self-discipline and community cohesiveness explain much of the success in coming to terms with an illness that remains almost out of control elsewhere.
Daily Beast
You can read more at the link, but these articles don’t mention how travel from China was not restricted which helped the spread of the virus in South Korea. Likewise it took time for South Korea to get their testing and quarantine strategy in place after the initial shock of the mass infections in Daegu.
The U.S. is now experiencing the initial shock Koreans felt last month and now authorities are scrambling to implement their own testing and quarantine strategy. There is definitely best practices that can be learned from South Korea, but they will have to be adapted to deal with a far larger & diverse population, spread out over a huge landmass, with different privacy laws.
Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.
If you are PCSing anytime soon you may want to get an amendment to your orders:
The Department of Defense will place restrictions on all domestic travel, including permanent change of station moves and temporary duty assignments, amid concerns over the coronavirus outbreak, according to a memo released Friday.
The order, which goes into effect Monday, applies to all military and civilian personnel and dependents assigned to DOD installations, facilities and surrounding areas within the United States, the memo stated.
The guidance is expected to be in effect through May 11, according to the DOD.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
