South Korea's experience
Disclosure of infected data is more effective than quarantine
Sergey Kolenov, Hi-tech+
Since the first day of the coronavirus pandemic, South Korean authorities have been disclosing data on the location and routes of infected people. This violates their privacy, but allows them to effectively fight infection. As American scientists have found out, the South Korean approach not only saves lives, but also spares the economy.
South Korea is coping better than most countries with the coronavirus pandemic. The key to its success is considered to be mass testing and tracking of infected contacts. However, a team of researchers led by specialists from the University of California at San Diego found another important factor - the public dissemination of information about cases of infection.
According to the press release Public Disclosure of COVID-19 Cases Is More Effective than Lockdowns, from the first day of the pandemic, South Koreans receive text messages whenever new cases of COVID-19 are detected in their area. In addition, information about the age, gender and routes of movement of infected people can be found on a special website. These data help people assess the risk of going outside and avoid areas with the highest infection rate, which is especially important for the elderly.
As a result, despite the absence of strict self-isolation measures, the number of infections in South Korea is much lower than in countries where the COVID-19 outbreak began on the same dates. For example, in ten million Seoul, as of the end of May, less than 1,000 confirmed cases of the disease were detected.
To track the routes and contacts of infected people, data from surveillance cameras, GPS signals from mobile phones and information about transactions from credit cards are used. This is a pretty serious privacy violation. Nevertheless, the authorities have the right to do so. They received it in 2015, after an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome, another dangerous infection caused by the coronavirus.
The researchers note that the South Korean strategy to combat the pandemic leaves citizens more space to choose. For example, if a person can work remotely, he will stay at home. However, if this is not possible, he will simply change his usual route and go to work, bypassing areas with a high level of infections.
The authors believe that public disclosure of information about infected people can more effectively contain the pandemic than a regular quarantine.
According to calculations, this approach can additionally save up to four thousand lives. In addition, it causes less damage to the economy.
How effective the Korean strategy is can be judged by the following figures. In South Korea, the impact of the pandemic led to a 1.4% drop in real GDP in the first quarter of 2020. This is much less than the 9.8% drop in China's GDP, where entire regions were quarantined.
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