KATHMANDU: COVID-19 pandemic has spread in more than 212 countries and territories of the world so far with 4,016,021 cases and 276,269 deaths caused by it globally.
It has reached to all continents with human settlements and impacted lifestyle and economy adversely everywhere. China, the country from where the outbreak started had once the largest number infection and death cases has contained it in 82,887 cases and 4,633 deaths, as it claims. USA has topped in the cases of infection and death toll with 1,322,163 cases and 78,616 deaths caused by the pandemic.
When the whole world is panicked with the horrifying grips of coronavirus pandemic, South Korea’s curbing of the pandemic is widely applauded.
The country which had first COVID-19 case on Jan. 20, had 20 cases on Feb. 19 which reached to 58 on Feb. 20 and 346 on Feb. 21.
The number hiked for the rest of the month, however, March came with better success story for the country. Now when USA and Europe which had the pandemic outbreak there quite late are struggling very hard to curb the spread, it has managed to contain the cases on 10,840. Only 256 people have died of the pandemic so far.
How did the country of 50 million people manage to control the pandemic spreading so wildly?
How South Korea tackled against the pandemic
First remarkable thing was the quick response and the preparedness.
The country came with speedy and swift action against the pandemic. The government officials met the representatives of the medical companies within one week after the confirmed case. By the end of January, Korea’s CDC had approved a diagnostic testing set of a company.
Next remarkable move of the Korean authority was the establishment of the screening centers. It displayed its special ability to test thousands of people a day. It is critical to act quickly before the situation aggravates.
South Korea’s action can be summarized into 3 T’s. These are: 1) widespread Testing, 2) contact Tracing and 3) rigorous Treating. Surely, fighting with the invisible enemy is difficult without the proper use of technology. Korea identified over 9,600 cases after testing more than 400,000 people till March 30, now with around 600,000 tests, there are 10,840 cases reported in the country which is far more than the number tested in any other countries. This helped the health and quarantine authorities isolate and treat many soon after they are infected.
Tracing plays significant role in controlling the pandemic. The way Korea executed tracing and used the technology is also appreciable.
Once an individual tests positive, the health authority retraces the patient’s recent course of movement to find and isolate others who came in close contact with the patient using security camera footages, credit card transactions and even GPS data on the patient’s cars and cellphones. Then, the health authority classifies the confirmed cases into four groups based on severity of symptoms from 1) mild, 2) moderate, 3) severe and 4) extremely severe.
Nepal also has planned to use the GPS for tracing, though it has not been carried out much effectively till date.
The moderate, severe and extremely severe cases are hospitalized immediately for intensive care until patients fully recover from the virus. Finally, the third action is public-private cooperation and civic awareness. The most important aspect in the fight against the coronavirus is the people. There would not be enough medical personnel to measure the health conditions and body temperatures of all citizens if the virus had spread nationwide. The high level of civic awareness and voluntary cooperation is the most important factor in containing and fighting against the coronavirus.
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