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Report 25: Response to COVID-19 in South Korea and implications for lifting stringent interventions

Spiral (Imperial College London)2020

Citations Over TimeTop 19% of 2020 papers

Amy Dighe, Lorenzo Cattarino, Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg, Janetta Skarp, Natsuko Imai, Samarth Bhatia, Katy A. M. Gaythorpe, Kylie E. C. Ainslie, Marc Baguelin, S Bhatt, Adhiratha Boonyasiri, Olivia Boyd, Nicholas F. Brazeau, Grace Charles, Leslie Cooper, Helen Coupland, Zulma M. Cucunubá, A Djaafara, Ilaria Dorigatti, Owen O. Eales, Jeffrey W. Eaton, Sabine van Elsland, Fabrícia F. Nascimento, Richard G. FitzJohn, Seth Flaxman, K Fraser, Lily Geidelberg, W Green, Timothy B. Hallett, Arran Hamlet, Katharina Hauck, David Haw, Wes Hinsley, B Jeffrey, Edward Knock, Daniel J. Laydon, Jonathan Lees, Thomas A. Mellan, Sikha Mishra, G Nedjati Gilani, Pierre Nouvellet, Lucy Okell, Kris V. Parag, M Pons Salort, Manon Ragonnet‐Cronin, H. H. Thompson, H. Juliette T. Unwin, Robert Verity, Charles Whittaker, Lilith K. Whittles, Xin Xi, A Ghani, Christl A. Donnelly, Nikita Ferguson, S Riley

Abstract

While South Korea experienced a sharp growth in COVID-19 cases early in the global pandemic, it has since rapidly reduced rates of infection and now maintains low numbers of daily new cases. Despite using less stringent “lockdown” measures than other affected countries, strong social distancing measures have been advised in high incidence areas and a 38% national decrease in movement occurred voluntarily between February 24th - March 1st. Suspected and confirmed cases were isolated quickly even during the rapid expansion of the epidemic and identification of the Shincheonji cluster. South Korea swiftly scaled up testing capacity and was able to maintain case-based interventions throughout. However, individual case-based contact tracing, not associated with a specific cluster, was a relatively minor aspect of their control program, with cluster investigations accounting for a far higher proportion of cases: the underlying epidemic was driven by a series of linked clusters, with 48% of all cases in the Shincheonji cluster and 20% in other clusters. Case-based contacts currently account for only 11% of total cases. The high volume of testing and low number of deaths suggests that South Korea experienced a small epidemic of infections relative to other countries. Therefore, caution is needed in attempting to duplicate the South Korean response in settings with larger more generalized epidemics. Finding, testing and isolating cases that are linked to clusters may be more difficult in such settings.

Citations Over TimeTop 19% of 2020 papers

Abstract

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