Page 24 - Smart public health emergency management and ICT implementations - A U4SSC deliverable on city platforms

5 Case study and examples

5.1 Seoul, South Korea

South Korea flattened the curve of rising coronavirus cases in the country within two months of
the outbreak. It did a remarkable job of fully curing 92 per cent of the more than 15,000 infected
citizens, keeping the death count at just 305 nationally. In the capital, Seoul, there were 1,841
confirmed cases with 13 deaths as of 15 August 2020 . South Korea, like the United States, saw its
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first case on 20 January 2020. However, the death toll in the US reached 170,000, with the number
of confirmed cases at 5.4 million. A year later, by August 2021, the number of Covid-19 cases in
the United States had risen to an estimated 36.5 million with 620,000 fatalities. In South Korea, the
case numbers for the corresponding period stood at 220,000 with 2,144 recorded fatalities. 62,63
These disparities have attracted much attention. South Korea may seem like one of a number of
Asian countries, including Singapore and China, which have so far managed to successfully flatten
the curve. However, it is the only country that did not suspend everyday activities. According to
the late Park Won-soon, Mayor of Seoul, Korean success lies in the “promptness and transparency”
applied by the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) in conducting tracing, testing and operating
24-hour quarantine countermeasures from the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as
by the role played by its citizens, whom he described as “Seoul’s Vaccine”. How did “promptness
and transparency” turn South Korea, and Seoul specifically, into the poster child for state officials
and policy-makers fighting this global crisis, and what role did the smart city endeavours play in
controlling this virus?

Promptness in tackling the virus is a result of years of preparedness since the Middle East
Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2015, preceded a year earlier by the sinking of the
Sewol Ferry in 2014. The impacts of both were worsened by the lack of government transparency,
making both speed and communication key to facing future crises. The result was an evolving
three-pronged approach to combating Covid-19, consisting of an extensive social distancing and
public hygiene campaign, a comprehensive medical strategy, and public-private partnerships.
This was enabled by an advanced infrastructure and innovative economy forming the basis of
the smart city. Notwithstanding the fundamental role played by technology and speed in testing,
tracing and treating, it was an underlying trust in leadership combined with the centralized mode
of governance that proved critical to the handling of this pandemic. Though this modus operandi
remains unchanged, the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases spiked in the second half of August
2020, forcing the government to sound the alarm and revert to stricter social distance measures. It is
not clear whether this was attributed to the long predicted second wave of the virus, or to the effect
of the change in leadership (following Park Won-soon’s suicide in July 2020) and consequently of
the changed relationship between the government and the people.

14 U4SSC: Smart public health emergency management and ICT implementations