South Korea: from early Covid success to fears over 'ferocious spread of virus'
In April, South Korea was being held up as an example of how to contain the coronavirus outbreak. A combination of aggressive testing, contact-tracing and isolation had helped it flatten the curve, despite its proximity to China – the centre of the original outbreak – and without a single day of lockdown.
The World Health Organization singled it out for praise, the government embarked on a campaign of “coronavirus diplomacy” with countries struggling with much bigger outbreaks and death tolls, and released a detailed guide to managing a pandemic, the South Korean way.
But eight months on, those early gains have given way to alarm that South Korea is in the grip of an unstoppable wave of infections, caused by clusters that are not responding to its tried-and-tested response.
On Sunday, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency [KDCA] reported a daily record of 1,030 new Covid-19 infections. Case numbers fell to below 800 the following day, partly due to fewer tests being conducted over the weekend, but rebounded to 880 on Tuesday. Health authorities warned that at the current rate, cases could reach 1,200 a day.
In the greater Seoul region – home to about half the country’s 52 million people – residents are bracing for stricter measures as authorities struggle to identify transmission routes that are fuelling a viral resurgence in and around the capital.
Park Young-joo, a 78-year-old woman living in Gyeonggi province, near Seoul, said she was worried.
“I’m trying to stay indoors as much as possible but I live with my son’s family, so I’m always worried that I might catch something from them,” she said. “Everyone in my family is on edge and I think it’s because I’m old and at a higher risk.”
Europeans and Americans, among others, could be forgiven for wondering why South Korea appears so concerned: it has reported a total of 44,363 cases, according to the KDCA, and just 600 deaths. That compares with more than 56,000 deaths in England, which has a similar population.
Yet the government has warned that failure to contain the resurgence could force it to raise restrictions to the level 3, the highest tier – in effect sending Asia’s fifth-biggest economy into a soft lockdown for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
Schools in the region were ordered to close on Tuesday and testing has been ramped up from about 16,000 people a day in September to 22,000. Year-end parties – a potentially huge source of transmission – have been banned.
Level 3 measures would keep all but essential workers at home, ban gatherings of more than 10 people and limit capacity on trains to 50%.
After almost a year of widespread mask-wearing, social distancing and periods of individual isolation triggered by the country’s contact-tracing technology, South Koreans are beginning to let their guard down, the prime minister, Chung Sye-kyun, said on Tuesday.
“While most people are putting up with the inconvenience and follow the rules, some are fuelling the ferocious spread of the virus with their carelessness and irresponsibility,” Chung said at a televised government meeting, adding that level 3 measures were a last resort because of the “irrevocable pain” they would cause the economy.
Health authorities have identified familiar social-distancing offenders such as churches and businesses dependent on the nightlife economy. In addition, large gatherings of family and friends were behind more than a fifth of the recently discovered clusters.
Some experts believe South Korea is paying the price for the government’s “premature” decision to ease restrictions in the autumn.
“The government changed its policy back in October, which means it now has to strengthen measures as the outbreak becomes more widespread,” Eom Joong-sik, an infectious diseases expert at Gachon University in Incheon, told the Guardian.
“This has allowed the virus to spread through local communities and raised the chance that it will spread over an even wider area,” he said, warning that the Seoul area was quickly running out of hospital beds.
Lauded only months ago for his initial response the pandemic, the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, has seen his approval ratings slide to a record low.
Moon, who has said the country’s “back is against the wall,” apologised for failing to quickly stem the recent rise in infections. “I am sorry to think of people feeling anxious and concerned,” he tweeted at the weekend.
Lee Seung-du, a 29-year-old Seoul resident, said he was wearing the most effective masks he could afford and was avoiding going out unless absolutely necessary.
“Every morning I wake up and see the number of infections has gone up again,” he said. “Only a few weeks ago, the government was bragging about how its measures were being praised around the world. But I think the whole thing is a joke … I can’t believe it is playing with people’s lives for the sake of a bit of good PR.”