2020年3月23日 星期一

韓國為何能有效控制疫情,它的模式能被複製嗎? South Korean officials caution that their successes are tentative.


2020.3.24

韓國為何能有效控制疫情,它的模式能被複製嗎?

MAX FISHER, CHOE SANG-HUN
除中國之外,韓國是唯一一個暴發大範圍疫情卻壓平了新增病例曲線的國家。它沒有嚴格限制言論和行動自由,也沒有採取打擊經濟的破壞性封鎖。韓國有哪些經驗值得借鑒?


【速報】今早南韓新增76名新型冠狀病毒(武漢肺炎)確診病患,包括大邱市31人、境外移入20人京畿道15人、首爾4人,累計9037人。
目前死亡人數120人,15440人檢驗中。






How South Korea flattened the curve

South Korea reported its lowest number of cases since last month on Sunday — a remarkable turnaround from the several thousand cases that exploded there in late February and early March.
Its strategy was not the full lockdown that China employed, or even the widespread restrictions that the U.S. and Europe have implemented. Instead, it focused on swift, widespread testing and contact tracing, our Interpreter columnist writes.
In the week after its first reported case, South Korea moved rapidly, eventually opening 600 testing centers and keeping health workers safe by minimizing contact. Once someone tested positive, officials meticulously traced their movements using security camera footage, credit card records, even GPS data from their cars and cellphones.

Reminder: South Korean officials caution that their successes are tentative. A risk of resurgence remains, particularly as epidemics continue raging beyond the country’s borders.


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...Yet new clusters are emerging, and for 20% of confirmed cases, it’s unclear how they became infected, suggesting there is still undetected community spread. “As long as this uncertainty remains, we cannot say that the outbreak has peaked,” Chun says.
More data needed

The government hopes to control new clusters in the same way it confronted the one in Shincheonji. The national testing capacity has reached a staggering 15,000 tests per day. There are 43 drive-through testing stations nationwide, a concept now copied in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In the first week of March, the Ministry of the Interior also rolled out a smartphone app that can track the quarantined and collect data on symptoms.

Chun says scientists are eager to see more epidemiological data. “We are literally stamping our feet,” Chun says. KCDC releases the basic counts of patients, their age and gender, and how many are linked to clusters. “That is not enough,” Chun says. He and others would like to study detailed individual patient data, which would enable epidemiologists to model the outbreak and determine the number of new infections triggered by each case, also known as the basic reproductive number or R0; the time from infection to the onset of symptoms; and whether early diagnosis improved patients’ outcomes. (South Korea has had 75 deaths so far, an unusually low mortality rate, although the fact that Shincheonji church members are mostly young may have contributed.) Chun says a group of epidemiologists and scientists has proposed partnering with KCDC to gather and share such information, “and we are waiting for their response.”

Kim says medical doctors are also planning to share details of the clinical features of COVID-19 cases in the country in forthcoming publications. “We hope our experience will help other countries control this COVID-19 outbreak.”
With reporting by Ahn Mi-Young in Seoul.

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