What’s Behind South Korea’s COVID-19 Exceptionalism?

[dan_bgblue]

Seven weeks ago, South Korea and the U.S. had the same number of virus deaths. Today, South Korea has fewer than 300, and the U.S. has more than 70,000. (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/whats-south-koreas-secret/611215/)

It appears to me, from reading the narrative of the South Korean government's approach to the potential pandemic, included actions that US citizens would view as breaches of their own personal liberties.

[StuBleedsBlue2]

I was just about to come post the same article.

There was some back and forth in the Coronavirus thread, where I said that I wasn't going to spend the time to talk about what went wrong. I think this article sums up very well about what South Korea did that was right. People can then draw their own conclusions about what has gone wrong, but clearly as a nation, we have not done the things that have worked.

There's a few points that I will make.

First, the comment that "US citizens would view as breaches of their own personal liberties" really shows that people don't really understand the extent of their own personal liberties.

Second, South Korea exemplifies true patriotism. Collective sacrificing for the safety of your nation is the essence of patriotism. Prioritizing protection of your own perception of your own civil liberties when your nation needs you most is the OPPOSITE of patriotism.

Third, while the article does not touch on this, the infrastructure WAS in place to be able to follow a path similar to South Korea. There absolutely was decisions to be made to ignore, and even decimate, that infrastructure. Minimally, in Feb/Mar, as a nation, we could have been lock step, or even a couple of weeks behind, South Korea to emulate their model.

What makes America great is our ability to learn from our past failures. The people are going to have choices to make that will determine whether we will do that, or just live in denial about how what we have been through and what we will go through could have mostly been avoided and continue to live through division and animosity towards one another.

Sadly, for the future state of our union, the latter will be the likely outcome that can only be resolved with real catastrophe and a real leader that can unite and heal. In the rest of my lifetime, I think we will see more of the former, but will continue to lack the latter.

[Bakert]

Oops...

"Seoul has shut down more than 2,100 nightclubs, hostess bars and discos after dozens of coronavirus infections were linked to clubgoers who went out last weekend as South Korea relaxed social distancing guidelines."

https://www.thejournal.ie/seoul-gangnam-5095091-May2020/

[KSRBEvans]

I don't pretend to know so much that I can tell people what they should or shouldn't do. But speaking only for me, it's going to be quite awhile before I'm placing myself in a large group setting.

I worry about college dorms and classrooms. Seems like a great environment for exchanging Covid, and there are no therapeutics yet.

[CitizenBBN]

First, the comment that "US citizens would view as breaches of their own personal liberties" really shows that people don't really understand the extent of their own personal liberties.

Please enlighten us poor souls.

personally I'm pretty simple and don't read much. I got through John Locke, Rousseau, the Declaration of Independence, the constitution and the Fedralist Papers and kinda stopped, so I'm sure I'm blissfully unaware and just don't understand my personal liberties.

B/c in all of those books and references those old fools had the nerve to suggest that I have ALL the liberty and I only choose to give some of it up to the state in order to basically function in a social contract. How outdated.