South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore have kept most factories, shopping malls and restaurants open throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Singapore has even kept schools open. This is how...

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15 days ago, South Korea was in the top 10 of countries with the highest COVID-19 infections. They managed to slow down the rate of infections and deaths, all without the popular strict lockdowns deployed everywhere in the world.

The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has called on other countries around the world to "apply the lessons learned in [South] Korea and elsewhere" in their own battles against the coronavirus.

South Korea managed to contain the spread of coronavirus by aggressively testing, isolating the infected and quarantining any suspected cases until they're cleared

Instead of spending R600m on soldiers to traumatise the public, S. Korea created a network laboratories and provides drive-through centres where people with symptoms can check their health status

South Korea's foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha said their strategy was about rapid testing. They actually developed a test in "mid-January", which is before they had their first confirmed case of COVID-19 on Jan. 20. Planning

S. Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong quarantined tens of thousands of people who may have been exposed to confirmed cases. They actually quarantined suspected cases, not the whole freaking country like some alleged leaders

They say most of the people ordered to quarantine at home are perfectly healthy and never get sick, while the few who do develop symptoms are quickly isolated further

Singapore chose to tighten border controls by restricting short term visitors, because according to the education minister, "so that daily activities, like going to work, eating out and attending school, can go on."

Singapore has dismissed the idea that schools could be breeding grounds for the virus, saying there is little "evidence to show that the young are vectors or spreaders of the virus. The reverse appears to be the case, where the young get infected by adults at home."

South Korea uses data from surveillance cameras, cellphones and credit card transactions to track the social connections of suspected cases. Considering COVID-19 was brought to SA by a demographic that fits this profile, the SA govt seems to have handled the outbreak terribly

S. Korea makes available the license plate numbers of taxi drivers who test positive and the flight numbers of infected travelers so members of the public can determine if they might have had any contact with these.

The Korean government installed test facilities inside Incheon Airport to speed up the process of testing all arrivals from Europe. All that test positive were quarantined immediately

WHO's Maria Van Kerkhove said for countries dealing with hundreds and even thousands of new cases every day, "finding every case" can be difficult. However, she also said "it's important to take the examples of all these countries, look at what they did... and learn from them."

South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong are more metropolitan and urban than South Africa is, however the earliest cases of COVID-19 in SA were only confined to urban areas and should have been restricted those hotspots, but seemingly there was never any will on the part of govt

S. Korea had their first case 6 weeks before South Africa. One would think our government would be monitoring their handling of the situation, instead of looking up to European countries that have failed dismally to contain their situations and following their ill-fated example

Sources: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/26/821688981/how-south-korea-reigned-in-the-outbreak-without-shutting-everything-down https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52001837