What can the U.S learn from how South Korea responded to the COVID-19
What I have learned..
Anti-Asian hate crimes
South Korea stands out in the global COVID-19 response, with less than 80,000 cases and 1,500 deaths a full year after the first case was published. The South Korean government's plans have been consistent, effective communication with the public on better preventive measures, vigorous and innovative testing and contact tracing, and a strong quarantine policy supported by sufficient encouragement that made it easy for patients to comply with the policy. This plans by Korean government was successful and helped the government to handle a series of outbreaks without affecting the economy, which is performing much better than that of most other countries.
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However, the success stories from South Korea may not be relevant to all countries. South Korea is a very small country compare to the U.S., and the population is highly urbanized, with over 80 percent living in urban areas. As a result, most cases in South Korea were often linked to a limited number of high-transmission activities or locations, such as megachurch services, other religious observances, a hobby sports club gathering, and workers who works at the small and packed space. Which means, it is much easily to use contact tracing technology than in the U.S. where the disease spread across several smaller clusters.
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Moreover, South Korea is more open to accepting personal data sharing, both culturally and legally, and its growth has been largely reliant on its capacity to quickly scale up technical solutions. Countries with less technology and people who do not have smartphones, or are not willing to share their data my have difficulty adapting certain strategies.
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Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 in the U.S. there are many states that experienced a significant hike in anti-Asian hate crimes. The recent studies showed that in cities such as New York, anti-Asian hate crimes rose from three in 2019 to 28 in 2020, a 833 percent increase. LA and Boston also experienced rises in Asian hate crimes, from seven to 15 and six to 14. As a Korean immigrant, it is really heartbreaking to hear that my people are getting hurt by those ignorant people. Asian are being easily targeted by hate crimes because the first-generation immigrants tend to underreports acts of racial discrimination and hate crimes. Also, a different study revealed that the use of "China virus" language to refer to the coronavirus, particularly by GOP officials already showed us that how many people in the U.S. perceive Asian Americans. When people see us they think we are foreign, they are more likely to express hostility toward us because they think we are weak and they are better than us. We all shares same blood, and skin colors should not be matter to determine who's better or not. We are all god's children, and we need to stop hurting and hating each other, the world's common enemy is the pandemic and we all need to gather together rather than killing and fighting each other. if someone doesn't step up to fix this problem, then I am going to step up and do everything I can to protect my people and my community. HATE IS A VIRUS and we need to fix that.
