South Korea learned from its 2015 MERS epidemic to quickly control Covid when it hit. Will the US be better prepared next time? If so, we'd have to heal the political and cultural divisions that are hurting us now. Can anyone imagine the US doing the following now?
"In the years afterward, South Korea introduced major changes to prepare itself for the next virus. It passed a law that empowered labs to use unapproved diagnostic tests in case of emergencies. It dramatically expanded the power of health officials, allowing them to close hospitals when needed and to access surveillance footage and other information for confirmed and suspected carriers. In future outbreaks, local governments would be required to alert residents to the number and location of nearby infections; the isolation of potentially infectious individuals would be mandatory, with fines for those who failed to comply. (In the U.S., during this pandemic, measures like these have been optional.) The directorship of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency was elevated to a top position within the government. A new public-health emergency-response team was established, and a special department was created to focus on risk communication. The government hired more epidemiologists, bolstered border-screening measures, and required hospitals to increase the number of negative-pressure isolation rooms. All this contributed to the fact that, beginning last year, South Korea mounted among the most effective pandemic responses in the world, recording around seventeen hundred covid-19 deaths across a population of fifty-two million people.
"In the years afterward, South Korea introduced major changes to prepare itself for the next virus. It passed a law that empowered labs to use unapproved diagnostic tests in case of emergencies. It dramatically expanded the power of health officials, allowing them to close hospitals when needed and to access surveillance footage and other information for confirmed and suspected carriers. In future outbreaks, local governments would be required to alert residents to the number and location of nearby infections; the isolation of potentially infectious individuals would be mandatory, with fines for those who failed to comply. (In the U.S., during this pandemic, measures like these have been optional.) The directorship of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency was elevated to a top position within the government. A new public-health emergency-response team was established, and a special department was created to focus on risk communication. The government hired more epidemiologists, bolstered border-screening measures, and required hospitals to increase the number of negative-pressure isolation rooms. All this contributed to the fact that, beginning last year, South Korea mounted among the most effective pandemic responses in the world, recording around seventeen hundred covid-19 deaths across a population of fifty-two million people.
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