Thread by @fascinatorfun

Lessons learned from South Korea — Outbreak Observatory

Also a reminder that by far the largest group testing positive for #CV were in the 20-29 age group (& linked to the Shincheongi religious community.

Next largest 50-59 yr old.
outbreakobservatory.org/outbreakthursd…

It is therefore a very different demographic to Italy. BUT South Korea learned from the hard experience of MERS in 2015 where they realised they had to contain the spread early on and that needed both diagnostic testing and systematic tracing plus quarantine

And they were ready

Not only had they had a very hard experience from MERS but that led to a systematic review and action plan ready should another such outbreak occur. It felt real.
And they tested it.

And corrected it

And realised in December that neighbouring China might have something similar

They reviewed their action plan and started preparing then.

As soon as the virus genome was sequences in the Ashanti Lab they developed an assault and were on high alert for travellers coming from China.

They identified their first case in 20th Jan. Traced.

Identified 29 more & they seemed to have contained it.

Until a 2nd case occurred in mid February. This time traced back to Qom in Iran, but that patient was less amenable and one lunch and a visit to a church service led to c 1000 more contacts to be quarantined.

Most of S Korea’s cases are traceable to the same religious community and the region around it.

However the elderly (70 and over) represent a much smaller group in the S Korean test positive cohort. Yet they account for 71.4% of the fatalities.

So not dissimilar to Italy.

The Authorities applied rigorous methods to ensure that those entering the country could be traced easily, having checked them for Cv19 symptoms

Social distancing implemented
Not shut downs but cancelling large events & delaying school start & encouraging citizen to stay indoors

The Government budgeted to support the local authority but managed to avoid the lock downs seen in China and Italy partly because they were in high alert, planning read and with priority of resource to testing & tracing ready to go.

One main cluster also helped containment