A record 10 million people in the United States have filed for unemployment in the space of two weeks, sparking fears of a recession. Calls to reopen the economy and discussions about how to do that are growing. However, with 347,003 infected and 10,335 killed by the coronavirus pandemic, going back to business as normal is a foolish idea for the time being. South Korea is also fighting its own outbreak, but it has managed to get COVID-19 under control without shutting down its entire economy. Widespread usage of face masks, aggressive testing and tracing, and partial shutdowns are the tools Seoul has used. Can America emulate that success when the time is right?
Wearing a face mask while sick is a cultural norm in South Korea. No one looks at you funny if you wear a mask, and during a pandemic, people will look at you oddly if you aren’t wearing one. Given that many illnesses spread from coughing or sneezing, this is a very practical precaution. In fact, one of the things that makes the coronavirus so dangerous is that, according to Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as 25% of those infected with the coronavirus could be completely symptom-free and are unaware they are carriers.
Traditionally, wearing a face mask isn’t a norm in America. But if you’ve paid attention during your grocery runs, the social acceptance of wearing them has increased. This shift is welcome since the CDC issued new guidelines on March 3, recommending everyone now use face masks. Wearing masks and thorough hand-washing make it safer to reopen parts of the economy eventually. Moreover, it will also save precious resources. One recent paper out of Yale University argues that for every single person wearing a cloth mask, $3,000 to $6,000 is saved by reducing COVID-19’s spread.
In addition to wearing masks, further mass and rapid testing are needed to find every hot spot. Meanwhile, South Korea is making 100,000 test kits a day, and those who are tested get their results texted to them within hours. Widespread testing has allowed them to pinpoint who might be infected and focus on certain geographic areas. For instance, while public places such as schools, gyms, churches, and museums are closed, in non-hot-spots, factories, cafes, bars, and malls are not.
Thankfully, the U.S. has drastically ramped up its testing capacity, with 1.7 million tests conducted so far, according to the COVID Tracking Project. The question now is whether or not America can catch up with the rate at which the coronavirus is spreading. That means testing people with symptoms, regardless of whether they’ve been abroad or interacted with a confirmed vector. If not, then the U.S. will instead have to focus on getting enough testing capacity to be ready for a likely second wave.
Finally, Seoul has also undertaken aggressive contact tracing and surveillance to find anyone who may have been infected and who they interacted with. Many of these measures are very invasive and would rightly cause discomfort in privacy-conscious Americans.
For example, those who have contracted the virus are required to add an app on their phones that tracks their location to ensure they don’t break quarantine. South Korea also uses people’s cellphone and bank records, along with surveillance cameras, to track people with the virus. Details about an infected person’s previous whereabouts are made public, such as what shops or cafes they visited and what bus they rode. Although no one’s name is revealed, the privacy implications are concerning. Yet these measures help avoid new cases, indicate areas to be disinfected, and allow some continuing business.
To be clear, South Korea’s success does not imply all of their measures are legal or worth adopting in America. However, certain standard contact-tracing procedures would help avoid future wide-scale shutdowns and stay-at-home orders. Authorities should continue to interview those who have tested positive to see where they have been and with who. State and local authorities should then alert citizens online and through text messages with basic information about what places to avoid and whether they might need to come in for testing if they’ve been to those locations. Constant news conferences and policy updates also get vital information out to the public.
These policies will help, but there is no perfect solution for how to partially reopen the U.S. economy. South Korea has made it work by getting ahead of their first wave, but even they are facing some business closures from a lack of customers as people voluntarily minimize outings and engage in social distancing. COVID-19’s economic damage is great and cannot go on forever. Given that there will likely be at least a second wave and it could take a year to get a vaccine, America cannot partially reopen without sufficient means to find and stop new infection clusters. Eventually, the current wave will peak and wane, and state and federal authorities need to have a plan for when that happens.
John Dale Grover is an assistant managing editor at The National Interest and a Korean studies fellow at the Center for the National Interest.
