COVID-19: What can we learn from South Korea's response?

A new research article identifies the factors that enabled South Korea to handle the COVID-19 pandemic particularly well.The research, which appears in The American Review of Public Administration, may be valuable as countries reflect on the relative merits of their own responses to the pandemic thus far.Stay informed with live updates on the current COVID-19 outbreak and visit our coronavirus hub for more advice on prevention and treatment.The novel coronavirus’s rapid spread across the world meant that governments needed to make quick decisions about how to respond. This required the people of South Korea to trust their government, which is not the case for many countries across the world.As You explains, some media outlets outside of South Korea “cautioned that personal information provided by the South Korean government disrupted [some people with COVID-19’s] private lives and invoked social stigma.”Following recommendations from the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, the government of South Korea amended patients’ information disclosure guidelines.Nonetheless, being aware of what did and did not work in South Korea may be helpful for countries in responding to future crises or possible further waves of the current outbreak, even if doing so requires taking into account local differences.For live updates on the latest developments regarding the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, click here.This live article covers developments regarding the coronavirus and COVID-19.