In the face of the 2015 outbreak, Korean authorities established several new organizations and ended up creating five competing and overlapping chains of command-without issuing clear guidelines for interagency collaboration. Furthermore, Korea failed to adopt the World Health Organization’s MERS recommendations issued in 2014, which suggested that countries increase MERS awareness and incorporate MERS prevention and response measures into existing legal frameworks. At that time, Korea’s legal framework for disease prevention, the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act, had not been updated to include MERS on its list of infectious diseases, and therefore, the government lacked a legal basis for a more extensive response. In its early stages, the MERS outbreak caught Korean authorities off-guard. Just as with any other crisis, pandemic response requires centralized leadership and a clear chain of command. What kind of institutional and legal changes did South Korea adopt to transform itself from a “super spreader” of MERS to a “super stopper” of COVID-19? Korea’s current President Moon Jae-in, who was the opposition party leader during the MERS outbreak, criticized government authorities as “super spreaders of MERS” for their slow-footed response. South Korea suffered the largest MERS outbreak outside of the Middle East-there were over 180 reported cases, almost 40 deaths, and nearly 17,000 people placed under quarantine. The TRUST campaign and other South Korean efforts to combat COVID-19 emerged following the traumatic experience of the 2015 outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), an illness that was also caused by a coronavirus. But South Korean health officials learned this lesson the hard way several years ago. South Korea’s strong response to COVID-19 can serve as a lesson for the rest of the world. Korea’s very effective model has been based on a “ TRUST” strategy-an acronym for “Transparency, Robust screening and quarantine, Unique but universally applicable testing, Strict control, and Treatment.” South Korea’s ability to test, trace, and treat infected people has allowed the nation’s leaders in Seoul to control the spread of the virus without imposing the aggressive lockdowns or complete travel bans that other countries have adopted. Since then, the two countries have taken drastically different actions to address the pandemic. The Delta variant is responsible for a growing wave of new cases in the region, which had previously managed the pandemic with some success, and the slow pace of vaccinations in countries including South Korea, Australia and Thailand is causing concern.South Korea and the United States both confirmed their first COVID-19 cases on January 20. South Korea’s total Covid-19 infections to date stand at 166,722 with 2,038 deaths. The country aims to reach herd immunity before November by inoculating 70% of the public with at least one shot by September. That has led to tougher curbs by the government including people being advised to stay home as much as possible and social gatherings restricted to two people after 6pm from four earlier in the day.Ībout 11% of South Korea’s 52 million people have completed vaccination, including receiving both shots for vaccines requiring two doses, while 30% have received one dose, KDCA said in a statement.

However the rising trend has prompted a warning that new case numbers may nearly double by the end of July. South Korea has so far fared better than many industrialised nations in infections and deaths, with a mortality rate of 1.22% and the number of severe cases at 148 as of Friday, which is much lower than the previous peak in late December.

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