COVID-19 Data in South Korea

Introduction

COVID-19 Testing in South Korea

South Korea was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic early on with its first confirmed COVID-19 case on January 20, 2020. South Korea had a plan for viral infection outbreaks after their recent failed experience with the MERS outbreak in 2015. South Korea was able to not go into any lockdowns by having strict testing and screenings to keep COVID-19 case numbers low and has kept numbers relatively low until the Omicron variant.

South Korea Surveillance Technology

Government Tracking in South Korea pre-COVID-19

South Korea is a very connected country. There has been a 200% increase in CCTV from 2013 to 2020. Many people, especially people living in rural areas, ask for more CCTV as they feel safer. CCTV footage has been increasingly used in court as evidence, and having a CCTV camera discourages criminals as they know if they break the law, it would all be on the footage. Having 1.34 million CCTV cameras in 2020 also has its downsides of lack of privacy as CCTV cameras can be legally placed on private property without the need of government permission. So it is difficult to know the exact number of CCTV cameras in South Korea, but the estimate is 1.34 million CCTV cameras in 2020.

How South Korea tackled COVID-19 with Technology

South Korea utilized the 1.34 million+ CCTV cameras with COVID-19 patient tracking. When a person test positive for COVID-19, government officials will first ask the patient when and where they have been in the past two weeks. The government officials will confirm and fill in the gaps with phone GPS, CCTV cameras, and credit card transactions. One way that South Korean citizens get COVID-19 related information is through COVID-19 government alert messages. As some phones do not have GPS on them, like many phones the older generations carry, or if GPS has been disabled, their phone location is still by phone towers and get to around an kilometer of accuracy.
The positive effect of utilizing this technology is that government officials do not have to completely rely on the patient’s words as most people can not fully remember every place they visited in the last two weeks as their memory will be hazy or they can also lie if the location they visited was embarrassing. And any information that the patient told the government officials, can be easily confirmed with CCTV footage and phone GPS tracking. Also any locations the patient did not remember can be figured out with the CCTV footage, GPS tracking, and credit card transactions. CCTV footage can be used to confirm the patient’s location, and also show if the patient were wearing masks correctly for the past two weeks. If the patient is caught not properly wearing the masks in public areas, they can get fined up to 100,000 won, or around 90 USD. This precise location tracking helps track down COVID-19 hotspots and help predict potential COVID-19 outbreak. One study used CCTV footage and location tracking to determine how some people in a restaurant got affected by COVID-19 by person A and how some people didn’t. Based on the CCTV footage, it was shown that person A had no contact with person B, one of the three people that got COVID-19 transmitted from person A, but the epidemiologists figured out airflow and how the air conditioner played a role in person A infecting person B. The epidemiologists used CCTV footage to also figure out how long and when the person A and the other three infected people were in the restaurant down to the minute. This study helped epidemiologists figure out how COVID-19 spread indoors and how long COVID-19 stays in the air indoors.
The negative effect of utilizing this technology is privacy. The main reason for the patient’s information is only open on the Ministry of Health and Welfare site for two weeks, so other citizens can see if they have been contacted with the patient, be hyper-aware of symptoms, and get tested if needed. However to the patient, so much information about their daily life has been uploaded for the public. There were cases of locations where patients would not want to be revealed to the public but have to for the greater good and safety of others. There were many comments on the online community stating that they did not realize just how many people went to love motels. There also was a special case, where people were able to figure out two COVID-19 patients having an affair based on their past two locations. There were arguments that there is no need for the government to upload a COVID-19 patient's past two weeks' location in such specificity as locations are uploaded down to the minute. There are many cases when a restaurant or cafe is named in one of the locations and they are forced to close. This causes immense stress on small businesses where a few days of no sale can be the difference between profit and loss.

COVID-19 Quarantine Tracking

Another technology that South Korea is using to tackle COVID-19 would be a self-quarantine tracking app. The app was first launched in March of 2020 and is mandatory for all overseas travelers to use while on two-week quarantine. For 15 days, the oversea traveler has to input their temperature, if they have a cough, sore throat, or difficulty in breathing. The traveler is required to input their temperature and if they have symptoms twice a day. They can not exit the app and have to leave the app running in the background of their phone for 15 days as it is tracking their location. Their location is tracked to make sure that they do not leave their homes. If their phone does not move for a while, they will also get a phone call from their assigned government official to make sure that they did not just leave their phone and went outside. Every traveler in self-quarantine is assigned a government official that will keep tabs on the traveler. The traveler also has to get COVID-19 tested twice during the 15 days. During the strictest quarantine restrictions, a government official will call the traveler’s phone twice a day to make sure they are home and government officials will visit the home and ask the traveler to come to the window with a mask and wave their hands. This is only for Korean citizens that traveled aboard and are coming back home as they have a permanent address. Non-citizens and tourists have to quarantine at government facilities and pay for the quarantine facilities. If any traveler breaks the quarantine rules, they can face up to 1 year in jail or a 10 million won fine. These strict guidelines were made in place as a lot of COVID-19 cases in 2020 were overseas and the travelers became COVID-19 super spreaders.

COVID-19 Masks

During the early stages of the pandemic, there was a mask shortage that lead the South Korean government to buy masks and redistribute them to pharmacies, so everyone has a chance to buy masks. The South Korean government made a set price on the masks of 1,500 won each, which is around $1.3 USD, and citizens can only buy up to 2 masks on a certain day based on their birthday. The South Korean government also put a ban on exporting masks. At first, only 10% of exports were allowed to be masks, but the South Korean government replaced that role by banning all mask exports in March of 2020 and lifted the ban in October of 2020.

COVID-19 Masks Tracking App

Even with the restrictions and help from the South Korean government on the masks shortage, it was still difficult for citizens to find pharmacies that had masks in stock as they sold out very quickly. The South Korean government open API on masks sales for pharmacies, so many companies, like Goodoc, Naver, and Kakao, utilized the open API to make apps for South Korean citizens to easily find the pharmacies that had masks in stock, so they do not have to walk to multiple pharmacies and waste their time. Many apps were made and opened to the public. They all served the same purpose of helping people see which pharmacies had masks or not. The apps had some different components, like the Kakao app was different from its competitors by having a cell phone number for all the pharmacies, so the person can call the pharmacy to confirm once more that they had masks in stock.

Divide between Phones and No Phones

In 2019, it was reported that 95% of the South Korean population owns a smartphone, while the remaining 5% have a mobile phone. It is predicted that the usage of smartphones will increase to 97.4% by 2025. While South Korea's smartphone ownership is the highest percentage in the world, there is still a generational digital gap. 29.2% of people between the ages of 60 to 69 know how to use smartphone apps and the most common feature of the smartphone that they use is calling and checking the time, while 100% of people between the ages of 30 to 39 use the internet on their smartphones. This causes a generational digital gap between the younger generation and older generation. The younger generation has more access to technology and apps thus having more information to navigate through the pandemic. During the early stages of the pandemic when masks were scarce, the younger generation found masks much faster and more effectively than the older generation as they used the mask finding app, such as the mask finding app made by Goodoc or Naver. The mask finding app allows people to check the stock of masks in real-time, so they would minimize time walking from one pharmacy to another pharmacy and directly asking the pharmacist if they have masks left. The South Korean government knew that this will be an issue, so they allowed family members to obtain masks for their elderly family members, but they must be over the age of 80 and need to show proof of family relations on another mobile app called Gov24.

COVID-19 Government Messages

As the older generation used their smartphones as cell phones and other minority groups, like people with disabilities, have limited physical boundaries to smartphones are unable to receive information and causing them to become more vulnerable, especially during the pandemic when information is vital. The COVID-19 government alert messages tell you a COVID-19 patient case number with information about the district they live in and major places they have visited at what time. It is used to inform nearby citizens to get tested if they have visited the same places at a similar time with the COVID-19 infected patient. The text message gives a basic outline of the major places the COVID-19 patient has visited, but people can go to the Ministry of Health and Welfare website to see more exact information. The Ministry of Health and Welfare website has information about the exact whereabouts of the COVID-19 patient for the last two weeks. No names are announced in the text message or on the website, but a lot of identifying information is given so some people are able to connect the dots and figure out who that person is. If the location is controversial, like a religious cult gathering, or embarrassing, like a love motel, that COVID-19 patient will face backlash and embarrassment from online comments that cause the COVID-19 patient to have mental health issues.

The information on the COVID-19 patient’s locations over the last two weeks is gathered by first asking the COVID-19 patients about their whereabouts over the last two weeks and then the gaps are filled up by their phone’s GPS, CCTV, and credit card transactions. The reason for sharing this much information is because of the MERS outbreak back in 2015, when the South Korean government was criticized for not sharing any information about the MERS patient and citizens believed that would have slowed down the spread and lessen the fear about MERS.