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Assessing the South Korean Model of Emergency Management during the COVID-19 Pandemic

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posted on 2021-04-06, 11:01 authored by MH Kim, Wonhyuk ChoWonhyuk Cho, H Choi, JY Hur
© 2020, © 2020 Asian Studies Association of Australia. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented global public health crisis, and governments have implemented various responses with varying degrees of effectiveness. South Korea’s approach, which has involved minimal lockdown in order to “flatten the curve”, and which offers an alternative for many democracies, has attracted much attention. Based on in-depth interviews with public health professionals and policy advisors in government agencies, this article analyses how well South Korea’s response to COVID-19 complies with the expectations of good governance, and assesses the strengths and challenges of the Korean model. Our analysis shows that South Korea has been reactive rather than preventive/passive amid waves of clusters such as outbreaks in nightclubs, e-commerce warehouses, schools, hospitals and religious gatherings. The government has used a range of countermeasures, including contact tracing, diagnostic testing, media briefings and text alerts. At the same time, the challenges for the Korean approach have been concerns about privacy, fatigue over emergency alerts and politicisation.

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Preferred citation

Kim, M. H., Cho, W., Choi, H. & Hur, J. Y. (2020). Assessing the South Korean Model of Emergency Management during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Asian Studies Review, 44(4), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2020.1779658

Journal title

Asian Studies Review

Volume

44

Issue

4

Publication date

2020-01-01

Pagination

1-12

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

Publication status

Published

Online publication date

2020-07-02

ISSN

1035-7823

eISSN

1467-8403

Language

en

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