The big lesson from South Korea's coronavirus response

Testing and tracing were the key to slowing the spread of coronavirus.

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In South Korea, citizens have flattened the curve of the novel coronavirus -- and it's because of lessons they learned from fighting the MERS outbreak in 2015. Through a combination of aggressive and widespread testing measures, along with a system know as “contact tracing,” they’ve been better positioned to spot the path of the virus and curb its spread. While they are still vigilant for a second wave of Covid-19 cases, people in South Korea are slowly returning to public life. Watch the video above to find out how their testing and contact tracing measures work, and how it can be a lesson for countries still in lockdown.

You can learn more about the 205 MERS outbreak in South Korea and the lessons learned from it here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5840604/
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/23/6/16-0120_article
https://www.who.int/emergencies/mers-cov/mers-summary-2016.pdf

If you are interested in the first reported cases in Wuhan, China you can check out their public announcement here:
http://wjw.wuhan.gov.cn/front/web/showDetail/2019123108989

This Reuters Graphics piece has a great timeline and visualization of the coronavirus clusters in South Korea:
https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-SOUTHKOREA-CLUSTERS/0100B5G33SB/index.html

You can read South Korea’s Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act to learn more about the tools the government has at its disposal to request location information during outbreaks here:
http://www.law.go.kr/LSW/lsInfoP.do?lsiSeq=188080&chrClsCd=010203&urlMode=engLsInfoR&viewCls=engLsInfoR#0000

To learn more about Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong’s handling of the coronavirus check out this TIME article:
https://time.com/5802293/coronavirus-covid19-singapore-hong-kong-taiwan/

You can check out all of our coronavirus videos via this playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ8cMiYb3G5dBbOh_8kPN5s5aJHt1UCwn

And finally, for all things coronavirus, head over to our Coronavirus, Explained hub where we have all of our extensive coronavirus coverage:
https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19

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