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How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
I believe its useful to consider countries success stories such as South Korea, Singapore and China, as well as countries such as Italy and Spain that are struggling.

The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has called on other countries around the world to "apply the lessons learned in [South] Korea and elsewhere" in their own battles against the coronavirus.

South Korea's foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, speaking to the BBC last week, said the key lessons from her country are that it developed testing for the virus even before it had a significant number of cases.

"In mid-January, our health authorities quickly conferred with the research institutions here [to develop a test]," Kang said. "And then they shared that result with the pharmaceutical companies, who then produced the reagent [chemical] and the equipment needed for the testing."


How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down
 

stvdv

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
I believe its useful to consider countries success stories such as South Korea, Singapore and China, as well as countries such as Italy and Spain that are struggling.

The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has called on other countries around the world to "apply the lessons learned in [South] Korea and elsewhere" in their own battles against the coronavirus.

South Korea's foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, speaking to the BBC last week, said the key lessons from her country are that it developed testing for the virus even before it had a significant number of cases.

"In mid-January, our health authorities quickly conferred with the research institutions here [to develop a test]," Kang said. "And then they shared that result with the pharmaceutical companies, who then produced the reagent [chemical] and the equipment needed for the testing."


How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

I think Italy has done a lot of effort, so I find it strange that numbers are still rising in Italy, whereas it is almost down to ZERO in China
Okay, I know China welded the doors of corona patients' houses, to really make sure they are in "lockdown"
But still, I think there is something they have not told us yet, but time will reveal all soon, I think
And I have read/seen so much inconsistent data being spread by WHO and science past week
That I have some trust issues in the moment. BUT, I still trust my gut feeling and common sense:)
 

Lyndon

"Peace is the answer" quote: GOD, 2014
Premium Member
I think not shutting down will be a much bigger disaster, in fact I know so
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
I believe its useful to consider countries success stories such as South Korea, Singapore and China, as well as countries such as Italy and Spain that are struggling.

The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has called on other countries around the world to "apply the lessons learned in [South] Korea and elsewhere" in their own battles against the coronavirus.

South Korea's foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, speaking to the BBC last week, said the key lessons from her country are that it developed testing for the virus even before it had a significant number of cases.

"In mid-January, our health authorities quickly conferred with the research institutions here [to develop a test]," Kang said. "And then they shared that result with the pharmaceutical companies, who then produced the reagent [chemical] and the equipment needed for the testing."


How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

Great article. Thanks,
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Thank you for an excellent OP, @adrian.

One thing to note about South Korea is that they began with only about 169 (as I recall) people in the entire country who were dedicated to the task of identifying every person who had had any contract with an infected person, but quickly added personnel until, if my sources are correct, they now have about five people per every one infected person working on the job. This ratio of 5 to 1 seems to be necessary to pursue their model for controlling the virus without lockdowns, etc. Of course, if you had very many cases, it would be impractical for a country to deploy enough people to use the model effectively. In practice, that means getting on top of the situation right from the start -- rather than dallying around in denial that you have problem.

Last, some people like to represent China's response to the virus as somehow more efficient and effective than it is. In doing so, they are wittingly or unwittingly parroting the propaganda efforts of the Chinese Government, which has been feeding the world hooey about how well they have handled things. For example: China is to be numbered among those countries that failed to get on top of the situation right from the start. That failure was largely due to their political system. Basically, they "played politics" with the virus until the situation was out of control and they were forced to resort to harsh measures to reign it back in.
 

David1967

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I believe its useful to consider countries success stories such as South Korea, Singapore and China, as well as countries such as Italy and Spain that are struggling.

The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has called on other countries around the world to "apply the lessons learned in [South] Korea and elsewhere" in their own battles against the coronavirus.

South Korea's foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, speaking to the BBC last week, said the key lessons from her country are that it developed testing for the virus even before it had a significant number of cases.

"In mid-January, our health authorities quickly conferred with the research institutions here [to develop a test]," Kang said. "And then they shared that result with the pharmaceutical companies, who then produced the reagent [chemical] and the equipment needed for the testing."


How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

My wife is from South Korea and a medical professional. She wonders why we in the USA did not better prepare for this when we knew it was coming.
While (my words here) South Korea was getting a handle on the situaion we had %$@$ like Sean Hannity calling it a hoax. The results are now evident. Hopefully, this passes soon.
 

Rational Agnostic

Well-Known Member
I think not shutting down will be a much bigger disaster, in fact I know so

Depends on how long we shut down. In the short term, I think you're right. If we stay on lockdown for the rest of the year, more people will die from starvation and suicide than from the virus.
 

Lyndon

"Peace is the answer" quote: GOD, 2014
Premium Member
I disagree, the government has well within its power to feed and support a segment of the population for a year
 

Rational Agnostic

Well-Known Member
I disagree, the government has well within its power to feed and support a segment of the population for a year

The government also has the power to support homeless people, but it doesn't and never has. In fact, it often punishes them. I'm very skeptical that the government, especially in the Trump administration, will deal with the ensuing economic catastrophe appropriately. Maybe I'm just a pessimist.

I think what needs to be done is: we need to somehow test everyone in the country at the same time, find out who has the virus and who doesn't, quarantine those who do, and send those who don't back to work. It's not sutainable to quarantine hundreds of millions of people and ask them to stay home from work, and it will destroy the economy for years, and as a result, a HUGE proportion of the population will soon be in poverty.
 

Rational Agnostic

Well-Known Member
We live in a country where we have veterans who have served the country who are now HOMELESS. If the government doesn't support them, do you really think the government is going to support the much larger population of Americans who will soon be in poverty as a result of having no income since going to work has now been made a crime? I don't.
 

TransmutingSoul

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I think shutting down everything will end up being a great disaster.

Regards Tony

I think not shutting down will be a much bigger disaster, in fact I know so

Thus we may have to wait until after those event and consider all the reactions that people had and actions they took.

I consider the many called essential services that still work on the front line, so to speak.

I see there would be many wise strategies that could be implemented without the need for a wholescale lockdown.

It will need to be discussed after this event passes us by. Many will suffer as a result of this event and they will not have had the virus.

Regards Tony
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
I think Italy has done a lot of effort, so I find it strange that numbers are still rising in Italy, whereas it is almost down to ZERO in China
Okay, I know China welded the doors of corona patients' houses, to really make sure they are in "lockdown"
But still, I think there is something they have not told us yet, but time will reveal all soon, I think
And I have read/seen so much inconsistent data being spread by WHO and science past week
That I have some trust issues in the moment. BUT, I still trust my gut feeling and common sense:)

I believe the problem for Italy with a number or other Western countries is there was already significant spread in the community before restrictive measures were put in place. Even if we have total lockdown the numbers will continue to rise rapidly for the next 7-10 days due to the incubation period and the time for symptoms to develop fully. However there does appear to be a flattening of new cases despite the bad news of over 900 deaths in the last 24 hours.

The point is prevention is better than cure. Through aggressive testing and contact tracing the disease can be monitored and contained to some extent. South Korea, China and Singapore appear to have had some success.
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
I think shutting down everything will end up being a great disaster.

Regards Tony

I think not shutting down will be a much bigger disaster, in fact I know so

I definitely believe there is a place for lockdown and am entirely supportive of the measures taken by many countries. However if a country has relatively low levels community outbreaks and aggressive testing and contact tracing there can be more judicious use of what closes and what stays open.
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
One thing to note about South Korea is that they began with only about 169 (as I recall) people in the entire country who were dedicated to the task of identifying every person who had had any contract with an infected person, but quickly added personnel until, if my sources are correct, they now have about five people per every one infected person working on the job. This ratio of 5 to 1 seems to be necessary to pursue their model for controlling the virus without lockdowns, etc. Of course, if you had very many cases, it would be impractical for a country to deploy enough people to use the model effectively. In practice, that means getting on top of the situation right from the start -- rather than dallying around in denial that you have problem.

You’ve got it. Through putting extensive resources into community tracing, testing and isolating contacts there can be some degree of containment. Get in early to do this and go hard. Leave it too late and its a run away train wreck. That’s what we’re seeing in Europe and the States.

Last, some people like to represent China's response to the virus as somehow more efficient and effective than it is. In doing so, they are wittingly or unwittingly parroting the propaganda efforts of the Chinese Government, which has been feeding the world hooey about how well they have handled things. For example: China is to be numbered among those countries that failed to get on top of the situation right from the start. That failure was largely due to their political system. Basically, they "played politics" with the virus until the situation was out of control and they were forced to resort to harsh measures to reign it back in.

I agree with what you say about China. However its also a valuable example of eventual containment through more restrictive measures and then being able to ease restrictions and implement aggressive testing and contact tracing strategies,
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
My wife is from South Korea and a medical professional. She wonders why we in the USA did not better prepare for this when we knew it was coming.
While (my words here) South Korea was getting a handle on the situaion we had %$@$ like Sean Hannity calling it a hoax. The results are now evident. Hopefully, this passes soon.

The USA isn’t the only country to have underestimated coronavirus and delay taking the necessary measures. If Western countries such as ours are prepared to learn from some Asian countries and cooperate closely with each other we can have a degree of containment. If we ignore science and off following unfounded theories the repercussions will be severe for us all.
 

stvdv

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
However there does appear to be a flattening of new cases despite the bad news of over 900 deaths in the last 24 hours.
Really you think? According to my list not yet
But it might...I wait a few days to be more sure
Still a boom might start, as there are maybe
triple more cases than they are aware of

upload_2020-3-27_23-29-40.png


The point is prevention is better than cure.
Agreed

Through aggressive testing and contact tracing the disease can be monitored and contained to some extent.
Monitored yes
Contained not by just monitoring aggressively IMO. Then you just have to stick to the discipline. The more discipline the less corona.
Corona spreads by contact, so ideally when all stay inside for like 2 weeks, Corona would be gone (as well as economy maybe). But not many countries manage this kind of discipline (maybe Vatican, but I just checked, they also went up from "1" to "4" recently). I just got an email from a friend staying at "mother Amma's ashram". They are in full lock down. No one is allowed to enter, and when you go out, you are "out":D. Really strict discipline. Only use your own spoon, cup, bottle and stuff. 2 meters distance (here only 1.5, India general 1.8m, ashram 2m). Makes sense to me. If the whole world would do it for ca. 2 weeks, corona will be "killed", but of course this is impossible. Even religions can't get on 1 line, let alone a whole country following 1 discipline. And the whole world is completely impossible, hence corona might be there for decades.
 

stvdv

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
I see so many inconsistencies, even in WHO. I am just curious, maybe you know these facts:
Question1: If someone passes by smoking, I can smell the smoke of the cigarette. Does corona travel in smoke also, or only with spit/saliva?
Question2: If some sneezes, I read Corona can travel up to 60 meters even. After that does it go down to the ground, or will it keep floating?
Question3: If some does not sneeze but is breathing in your face (2 people in 1 car), can corona be transmitted?
Question4: If I buy groceries, others touched with "corona-fingers", how long it takes before "corona" wears off (I read 16 hours and 7 days)?
Question5: I read H2O2 kills Corona. I read 0.5% solution is sufficient (I think 30 seconds in it). I think that's the cheapest solution. What you think?

South Korea, China and Singapore appear to have had some success.
Right, appear. I do know that even the "Director general of WHO" has been manipulating with numbers in the past (cholera numbers). And China has been doing some "questionable things also" see links below. So knowing all this, you might understand I am less gullible into believing people related to these countries and events:). First youtube probably has the facts straight, the others (Gravitas) I am not sure if it is a trusted source (always a problem on internet):
(.....04m08s: quite a statement is made there by the interviewer, and quite easy dismissed by the chinese)
(.....Quite a tough lady sharing some facts about China; below 3 some more facts about China)

BUT, of course I hope you are right, and soon all countries find the perfect way out of "corona crisis", by following China or S.Korea or ....
In video1 is mentioned that China army really would like to kill 10.000 Americans. Coincidentally ca. 1 year later it seems to happen. I always wonder, what is coincidence and what is not? Or maybe it is just God's plan. Or maybe it is just "mother earth correcting our filthy, disrespectful attitude towards Her" (this one makes really sense to me; as I believe in Sanathana Dharma teaching us "Dharma protects those who protect Dharma" (and going against Dharma, well ... we need not be clairvoyant to fill in the dots);)

I do believe it's good to throw all this in the open. Because humanity does have to change it's destructive habits. Humans (some total) really abuse mother earth, and have no respect whatsoever. And karma is a bitsj (even if you don't believe in Karma):D
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
Really you think? According to my list not yet
But it might...I wait a few days to be more sure
Still a boom might start, as there are maybe
triple more cases than they are aware of

43801_b7e28acef4ff8401712b34b00ab97d8b.png

My point was the death rate had stabilised or flattened out in that it had been consistently between 600 - 800 between the 20th and 26th March. This is in comparison to the previous seven days that appears to show the death rate is rapidly increasing. Of course the 919 deaths on 27th March may represent a further increasing rate of death or may be an anomaly. We will know in the next few days.

Having 600 - 800 deaths from coronavirus in Italy is horrific for Italy and the health system is clearly overwhelmed. It is a sobering reminder to us all why we are now applying restrictive measures. None of our health systems has the capacity to cope with this per capita number of seriously unwell people in Italy.

Monitored yes
Contained not by just monitoring aggressively IMO. Then you just have to stick to the discipline. The more discipline the less corona.
Corona spreads by contact, so ideally when all stay inside for like 2 weeks, Corona would be gone (as well as economy maybe). But not many countries manage this kind of discipline (maybe Vatican, but I just checked, they also went up from "1" to "4" recently). I just got an email from a friend staying at "mother Amma's ashram". They are in full lock down. No one is allowed to enter, and when you go out, you are "out":D. Really strict discipline. Only use your own spoon, cup, bottle and stuff. 2 meters distance (here only 1.5, India general 1.8m, ashram 2m). Makes sense to me. If the whole world would do it for ca. 2 weeks, corona will be "killed", but of course this is impossible. Even religions can't get on 1 line, let alone a whole country following 1 discipline. And the whole world is completely impossible, hence corona might be there for decades.

If there was no contact between anyone in a two week period the capacity of the virus to spread would be very much reduced.

The virus has an incubation period of 2 - 14 days. So after a 14 day period of restrictive measures, if we are symptom free, we are extremely unlikely to have Covid 19. However, there may be people who have symptoms after 14 days who don't self isolate beyond that period and the whole cycle begins again. So it does require high levels of self discipline and compliance from us all.

I see so many inconsistencies, even in WHO. I am just curious, maybe you know these facts:
Question1: If someone passes by smoking, I can smell the smoke of the cigarette. Does corona travel in smoke also, or only with spit/saliva?
Question2: If some sneezes, I read Corona can travel up to 60 meters even. After that does it go down to the ground, or will it keep floating?
Question3: If some does not sneeze but is breathing in your face (2 people in 1 car), can corona be transmitted?
Question4: If I buy groceries, others touched with "corona-fingers", how long it takes before "corona" wears off (I read 16 hours and 7 days)?
Question5: I read H2O2 kills Corona. I read 0.5% solution is sufficient (I think 30 seconds in it). I think that's the cheapest solution. What you think?

Corona spreads mostly by respiratory droplets from coughing or sneezing but also in the air that an infected person expires. That is why we should have physical distancing of at least 2 meters from everyone, to minimise the chances of being infected by inhaling those droplets.

Both smoke and respiratory droplets travel by air.

While a sneeze can cause a mushroom effect with droplets spreading much further than 2 meters, the concentration of the virus in the air becomes much less after 2 meters. So you need to have sufficient exposure with a higher concentration of the virus in a short time or be exposed to the a weaker concentration over a longer period to be infected. That is why the risks are increased with being in the same room as an infected person after 15 minutes.

Those droplets from coughs and sneezes can end up on surfaces such as fruit and vegetables, keyboards and surfaces. That is why washing fruit and vegetable, washing hands, and avoiding touching your face is so important. Cleaning with alcohol, disinfectant, bleach, hydrogen peroxide or soapy water is fine.

Right, appear. I do know that even the "Director general of WHO" has been manipulating with numbers in the past (cholera numbers). And China has been doing some "questionable things also" see links below. So knowing all this, you might understand I am less gullible into believing people related to these countries and events:). First youtube probably has the facts straight, the others (Gravitas) I am not sure if it is a trusted source (always a problem on internet):

My interest is in finding ways to assist individuals and communities through this pandemic. Although I don't doubt some dodgy behaviour on the part of some governments I'm firmly focused on practical solutions. :)
 

stvdv

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
Corona spreads mostly by respiratory droplets from coughing or sneezing but also in the air that an infected person expires. That is why we should have physical distancing of at least 2 meters from everyone, to minimise the chances of being infected by inhaling those droplets.
Thank you, for this one. I never read it anywhere, so was not sure. But this indeed makes sense to me.

Both smoke and respiratory droplets travel by air.
Thank you again.

While a sneeze can cause a mushroom effect with droplets spreading much further than 2 meters, the concentration of the virus in the air becomes much less after 2 meters. So you need to have sufficient exposure with a higher concentration of the virus in a short time or be exposed the a weaker concentration over a longer period to the virus to be infected. That is why the risks are increased with being in the same room as an infected person after 15 minutes.
Aha, never thought about that. Makes a lot of sense. Our immunesystem can handle only "x corona bugs/h" kind of thought I guess.

Those droplets from coughs and sneezes can end up on surfaces such as fruit and vegetables, keyboards and surfaces. That is why washing fruit and vegetable, washing hands, and avoiding touching your face is so important. Cleaning with alcohol, disinfectant, bleach, hydrogen peroxide or soapy water is fine.
Thank you. Knowing all this, I can imagine why it's so hard to stop a virus, you must be vigilant 24/7. One slip and corona might catch you

My interest is in finding ways to assist individuals and communities through this pandemic. Although I don't doubt some dodgy behaviour on the part of some governments I'm firmly focused on practical solutions. :)
Very good point. Best to focus on the positive. I agree, thanks for the reminder:D

Thanks for answering all my questions, those were the ones not so clear. I got it figured out pretty much now.
Corona is a big aid in creating awareness of living a clean life, and watch your every step, as long as it's alive.
 
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