Coronavirus: What can the world learn from South Korea?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2020
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After China, South Korea was next in line to be struck by the Coronavirus outbreak. And in the early days the number of cases was going up fast – many of them related to a secretive religious sect. But the country has rapidly managed to get a grip on the outbreak and has kept its mortality rate low. It has done this without an official lockdown. The secret appears to be preparation, widespread testing and acting fast. With the help of four expert witnesses, Kavita Puri investigates what else we can learn from South Korea in its battle against Covid-19.
Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: John Murphy
(A couple wearing face masks walk through an alleyway in Seoul on March 24, 2020. Credit: Ed Jones/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the inquiry on the BBC World Service with me, Kavita Puri. |
| 0:04.6 | Each week, one question, four expert witnesses and an answer. In the southern city of De Gu in South Korea, a 61 year old woman goes to hospital. |
| 0:21.4 | She has a headache. |
| 0:28.0 | Over the next week, she meets a friend for lunch, and she attends church twice, |
| 0:30.0 | along with hundreds of other worshippers |
| 0:32.8 | at the secretive Xinjonchi's sect. |
| 0:37.8 | But her condition worsens, |
| 0:39.8 | and on February the 17th, |
| 0:41.8 | 10 days after first feeling ill, she's tested for coronavirus. |
| 0:47.3 | It's positive. |
| 0:51.2 | She becomes South Korea's infamous Patient 31. |
| 0:55.0 | The previous 30 patients had been to China or come into contact with an infected person. |
| 1:02.0 | Patient 31 had not. It showed the virus was now |
| 1:07.6 | circulating freely in the country. Soon thousands of new cases were identified, the vast majority members at the Xinjunchi Church. |
| 1:20.0 | But from a peak of 900 new cases in a day at the end of February, South Koreans have dramatically |
| 1:28.4 | reduced those numbers. |
| 1:30.9 | How did they do it? This week we're asking what can the world learn from South Korea. career. |
| 1:45.0 | Part 1, Tech and Testing. |
| 1:49.0 | Every single day I've watched the head of the Center for Disease Control for the last two months every day |
| 1:57.6 | she has briefed the whole country. She has looked more and more tired. Her hair has gone gray. |
| 2:05.0 | This is Laura Bicker, the BBC's sole correspondent. |
| 2:09.0 | She's been living in South Korea during the coronavirus crisis. |
... |
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