With B.C. now looking at a potential slow opening of the economy as soon as mid-May after the COVID-19 outbreak peaks, what may the path forward look like - and what are the potential pitfalls?
As COVID-19 first struck Asia in February, many Asian countries are now dealing with those questions as they are about 1-2 months ahead of the Canadian pandemic timeline. As such, Business in Vancouver is taking a closer look at a number of countries in Asia on how they dealt with the same re-opening questions that’s now facing B.C.
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As one of the countries in close proximity to the COVID-19 virus’s original epicentre in Wuhan, South Korea was expected by many to be one of the hardest-hit countries by the pandemic.
Early numbers appear to confirm those fears: South Korea, at one point in February, had the highest cases of COVID infections outside China. From Feb. 27 to March 5, the country reported daily new cases above 500 regularly, peaking with 851 on March 3. Many new cases - as many as 60% - were traced to the religious sect Shincheonji, which was holding congregations with practitioners grouped in close proximity without face masks, encouraged to attend even if ill.
Since then, however, South Korea has seen a dramatic reversal. New daily cases did not rise above 200 after falling to 114 on March 12, and that figure fell in the last week into the single-digits. And all of this was accomplished without a complete lockdown seen now in Canada and elsewhere in the West (although places like schools were closed).
The key reason, said Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada vice president of research Jeff Reeves, was transparent information - lots and lots of it. Contrary to what’s seen in places like B.C., government officials began tracking through things like cellphone data to identify the exact itineraries of someone who has tested positive - then sent out warning texts to the general population alerting them of the places where the infected patient has travelled in detail.
Along with a rapid ramp-up of testing - the country pioneered drive-through tests that quickly identified many people with the virus - Seoul was able to clearly delineate high-risk locations and tell people to avoid it.
“South Korea was able to mobilize mass-testing early on in their response in order to identify which portions of the Korean population has been exposed,” Reeves said. “And by using that baseline of testing, they were able to organize a full range of responses. Rather than having to do a widespread lockdown because they didn’t understand the areas and the extent of infection, they were able to use testing and tracking to narrow down - beyond national or provincial levels, but to the point of specific locales - potential hotspots.”
Authorities then, Reeves noted, sent texts sometimes multiple times a day to tell people to avoid certain places - which has actually caused some Korean citizens to complain about potential invasions of privacy because officials were outlining specific places that an infected person was going (and with whom the infected is going to such places with).
Some Korean residents said in reports, for example, that the government’s texts showed one infected man in his 50s returning from Wuhan with his 30-year-old secretary - triggering rumours of infidelity. Another infected patient had his visit to a sexual harassment class revealed by government text to the general public.
Such privacy concerns are legitimate, Reeves said, and would mean that the use of cellphone tracking down to such minute levels is unlikely in Canada or the United States (where public expectations and concerns for privacy are much higher than that in places like Korea). But Reeves added there really isn’t a good reason to at least provide more transparency to the path of COVID infections in the local community for Canadians living here to avoid hotspots.
On the potential of such transparency triggering public panic, Reeves noted the South Korea example has been definitive as a response.
“I think it has done the exact opposite,” he said. “What we’ve seen is that, the more you are able to share with the public, the more people can make personal decisions around their activities. That gives a person more control over their own situation, and that sense of control has proven to push people further away from panic.
“One of the biggest fears of COVID is that people don’t know what’s happening. The more the government can do to proactively provide people with information, the more it contributes to have that sense of control.”
Another major factor for South Korea getting a grip on the COVID-19 outbreak, said Agnes Kim, was the simple fact that the disease did not catch the government or its people by surprise.
Kim, a former UBC student now living in the Seoul suburb of Yongin, said that while many other countries suffered through the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, Korea’s last bout with a deadly contagious pathogen came much more recently - when the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) infected 186 people and killed 36 in 2015.
“Our society learned a lot from MERS,” Kim said about Korea’s current response to COVID. “In fact, the current health alert system was planned and implemented after going through SARS and MERS.”
She added that the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster (where 299 passengers - many of whom school children - died partly due to lack of transparency from ferry regulators and the coast guard) also created a public expectation for government to place public safety above all else, including things like privacy and disruptions to daily lives.
Then there’s the public’s own will to self-isolate. While there were no official lockdowns, shops and restaurants reported dramatically lower customer numbers in February and March, with the Seoul subway reporting passenger traffic at less than 50% of normal levels. Kim herself noted people in even rural areas staying home and wearing masks while going out, and she herself and her family (including two young children) stayed home for long periods voluntarily.
Part of that, she said, is made possible because South Korea - with the world’s fastest Internet network - has a large e-commerce sector that was ready to replace brick-and-mortar services at a moment’s notice.
“Although there was no one in our neighbourhood with a confirmed case, we stayed inside the house and shopped everything online,” Kim said. “In Korea, pretty much everything is purchasable online and is delivered next morning if you live close to the city [Seoul].”
