How Did Some Asian Countries Limit The Spread of COVID-19?

It’s no secret that the U.S. has been hit hard by the spread of COVID-19 in our population. As of Friday, Jan. 29, there were 25,768,826 reported positive cases and a total of 433,213 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. (Our population was reported to be 331,002,651 in 2020.)

While the holiday spike is starting to recede, our infection and death rates are among the highest in the world when measured by percent of the population. Our health systems are severely strained and ICU units are near capacity in many places. While vaccines are currently being deployed, it will take many months for a majority of our citizens to get vaccinated. In the meantime, there are still things we can and must do to slow the spread and save ourselves from more death, the debilitating side effects of the virus, and more economic pain from further lockdowns.

Let’s look at two Asian countries that have been among the most successful at controlling the pandemic to see how they did it.

South Korea acted quickly to approve test kits—one week after the government requested companies to develop them—and immediately instituted an aggressive contact tracing system (using cell phone records, credit card transactions, video surveillance and TV footage, and/or voluntarily-downloaded tracking apps) to notify people of possible exposure and prevent them from exposing others. The Infectious Disease Control Prevention Act (amended in 2015 by the National Assembly after a SARS outbreak) permits the collection of personal data that can be disseminated anonymously, allowing people to do their own contact tracing as well. While there was a limited lockdown in the city of Daegu after a super-spreader church event, the rest of the country was spared more severe lockdowns and the painful economic repercussions that go with them. As I noted in a previous post, mask-wearing quickly became widespread, as it was already accepted as a key component to discouraging the spread of disease. As of Jan. 29, 2021, South Korea reported a total of 1,399 deaths from COVID-19. (The population was reported to be 51,269,185 in 2020.)

Vietnam.

Source: Image taken by Cynthia Kim Beglin

From the very start of the pandemic, Vietnam mounted one of the world’s strongest and most successful responses, thus sparing its citizens the devastating health and economic consequences suffered here in the U.S. and many other countries. Vietnam’s extensive 1450 km border (about 901 miles) with China was immediately closed, and visitors from the U.S., the U.K., and the rest of the world were successively banned as the situation evolved. Test kits were quickly developed and used.

As in much of the rest of Asia, mask use was already widespread to prevent disease. Local quarantines were instituted, with area governments mobilizing the military to help provide needed services and food to quarantine facilities. There was a short two-week period of physical distancing, when all Vietnamese were asked to stay at home, close non-essential businesses, and limit the use of public transportation. These measures, along with aggressive contact tracing, case management, and coordinated government communications that prioritized people’s health over the economy have kept Vietnam’s infection and death levels among the lowest in the world. As a result, the population is healthy, the economy is continuing to grow, and the country is benefiting as companies such as Apple and Samsung diversify some of their supply chains out of China into Vietnam. As of Jan. 29, 2021, Vietnam reported a total of 35 deaths from COVID-19. (The population was reported to be 97,338,579 in 2020.)

What do these two Asian countries have in common? Their governments quickly and clearly communicated with their people to implement contact tracing and quarantining, testing, mask wearing, and limited or short lockdowns. In recent years, both had to deal with the SARS and MERS epidemics and have developed extensive contact tracing infrastructures that were already in place before SARS-CoV-2 arrived. Both countries have populations accustomed to wearing medical masks to prevent the spread of disease. Most importantly, the majority of citizens in both countries expect and want their government to protect them during any health crisis and trust them to do so. They are ready and willing to cooperate with their governments in an effort to protect themselves and their countrymen. They even feel it is their patriotic duty.

While respect for authority and willingness to endure inconvenience for the greater good is grounded in Confucian teachings, it is not only an Eastern value. When New Zealand first learned of the threat of COVID-19, Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern closed the borders almost immediately to visitors arriving from China and soon after to all visitors. In addition to early border closures, a severe but short month-long lockdown was imposed, combined with widespread early testing and contact tracing. A financial relief package was passed, and mask-wearing was mandated for all public transportation. The government has clearly and consistently communicated that its goal was to “squash” the virus. It has been very nearly completely successful, except for small outbreaks that occurred in mandated isolation when citizens were eventually allowed to return to the country. The PM has enjoyed full support from the opposition party for her handling of the crisis and polls indicate that 80-90 percent of New Zealanders are happy with the government's handling of the pandemic. As of Jan. 29, 2021, New Zealand reported a total of 25 deaths from COVID-19. (The population was reported to be 4,822,223 in 2020).

While the U.S. government has been largely unsuccessful in containing the virus for a variety of reasons, because the FDA has now approved two vaccines, with more possibly in the offing, there is light at the end of the tunnel. We need to do what worked in other countries to slow the spread of the virus until we can achieve herd immunity through vaccinations.

While the majority of Americans may never accept the aggressive contact tracing that has worked in other countries (and the virus is too widespread for our unsophisticated methodology at this point anyway), we can avail ourselves of the coordinated testing that is ramping up in most places. We can get tested after a suspected exposure by following CDC testing guidelines (quarantine for five days before being tested and continue to quarantine until test results are available) or quarantine for two weeks whether or not you are symptomatic. We can wear our masks and social distance to protect ourselves and our fellow citizens, even if we have already had the vaccine, since there is not yet definitive proof that vaccinated people cannot carry the virus and pass it on to others.

And now that more contagious and potentially more lethal COVID variants (the U.K., South African, and Brazilian variants) have emerged in our country, we need to wear two masks, or “double mask” (a cotton mask over a surgical mask is fine) or wear an N95 mask (so long as there are ample supplies for our health care professionals and first responders). When our group is called up, we need to get our vaccines.

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We must do all these things to reduce the spread of the virus because the more people it infects, the more opportunities it has to mutate into a variant that is potentially more contagious, more deadly, and even more able to evade the current vaccines. We owe it to ourselves and to each other as fellow citizens of the U.S. and the world to do everything we possibly can to stop this virus.