Although most economies in East Asia have successfully contained the pandemic without nationwide \u2018stay in shelter lockdowns\u2019, many governments have seen such measures as necessary. But lockdowns are blunt measures, with inevitable adverse consequences, especially for businesses and employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many countries have thus imposed lockdowns, citing China\u2019s response in Wuhan. But as the first WHO fact-finding mission to China noted, \u201cthe majority of the response in China, in 30 provinces, was about case finding, contact tracing, and suspension of public gatherings\u201d, all common measures used anywhere in the world to manage [infectious] diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lockdowns were limited to a few cities where contagion went \u201cout of control in the beginning\u201d. The key lesson from China was all about speed. The faster you can find the cases, isolate the cases, and track their close contacts, the more successful you\u2019re going to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be sure, lockdowns \u201cflatten the curve\u201d by temporarily preventing further contagion. But unless accompanied by appropriate complementary measures, undetected infectious individuals may cause silent community transmission that becomes evident only too late. Instead of lockdowns, it is far more prudent to find and isolate cases before numbers become unmanageable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Korean lessons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Republic of Korea was the first country to dramatically reduce the number of COVID-19 cases and related deaths without nationwide movement restrictions. It checked the spread of COVID-19 infections without imposing lockdowns, even in Daegu, its most-infected city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mass testing has been key to its response, doing the most by mid-March. By late March, Korea\u2019s newly confirmed cases had fallen from second to eighth place in the world. Meanwhile, Korean authorities urged physical distancing, personal hygiene and remote work while discouraging mass gatherings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government also had legal authority to collect phone, credit card and other data to expedite contact tracing, and initially only restricted incoming travellers from Hubei province, where Wuhan is, for precautionary reasons, and from Japan in political retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as China had rapidly identified pathogen characteristics using artificial intelligence and big data access, Korea innovatively deployed new technologies to expedite rapid responses to trace, test, treat and isolate those infected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lessons from Vietnam<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Three months ago, a Vietnamese official described how \u201cVietnam is fighting COVID without pitting economic growth against public health\u201d. Besides testing and contact-tracing, \u201cthe government has depoliticised the pandemic, treating it purely as a health crisis, allowing for effective governance\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hence, there is \u201cno political motive for government officials to hide information, as they don\u2019t face being reprimanded if there are positive cases in their authority area that are not due to their mistakes\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He noted that \u201cwith the head of the Hanoi centre for disease control being arrested for suspected corruption in relation to the purchase of testing kits, and small traders getting fines for price-gouging face-masks, the government has also been clear that public health cannot be entangled with commercial interests\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After China announced its first infections and deaths in January 2020, \u201cVietnam tightened its border and airport control of Chinese visitors. This wasn\u2019t an easy decision, given that cross-border trade with China accounts for a significant part of the Vietnamese economy\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vietnam also \u201ctook precautionary measures above and beyond World Health Organisation recommendations\u201d. Preparations started \u201ca week before the outbreak was officially declared a public health emergency of international concern, and more than a month before WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The communist-led government also ensured \u201cfreedom of information on COVID-related matters\u201d. \u201cLockdown and isolation are more selective\u201d from the outset, without resorting to nationwide lockdowns, as has happened elsewhere without much benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vietnam is one of the few countries with \u201cpositive GDP growth\u201d in 2020; \u201cthe supposed trade-off between the economy and public health\u201d looks to be something of a false choice\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In their war, Vietnam is believed to have lost over three million people compared to 58,209 US lives. In fighting the virus, Vietnam, with 97 million people, has lost 35 lives so far, while the US, with a 332 million population, has lost almost four hundred thousand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mass testing crucial<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After a year of living with COVID-19, all governments can learn a great deal from critical evaluation of their own country experiences, other experiences as well as accumulated, especially new knowledge relevant to feasible policy options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus far, appropriate East Asian policy measures for rapid early detection, isolation and contact tracing, while protecting the most vulnerable and treating the infected, have succeeded in flattening the curve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More reliable, cheaper methods (e.g., \u201clateral-flow\u201d antigen tests) allow more frequent mass testing. As undetected cases are more likely to spread infection, such tests enable more frequent, faster and easier testing and quicker results, and facilitate faster, more efficacious actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This can help check contagion by identifying more of those infected earlier, thus reducing transmission. Even though less accurate than supposed \u201cgold standards\u201d, lower costs allow more widespread and frequent testing to identify many more of those infected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Easier to administer and delivering results more rapidly, such cheaper, simpler and quicker tests more speedily detect the infected, especially among the asymptomatic, in time for appropriate and timely action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As SARS-CoV-2 transmission peaks several days after infection, together with the viral load, more frequent testing is necessary to check contagion. More frequent mass testing is probably going to detect many more of those infected much earlier, while they are still infectious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look East<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the early 20th century, a young Cambridge-trained doctor, Wu Lien Teh, returned to practice in the British colony of Penang where he mobilised thousands against the opium trade. The authorities arrested him, forcing him to seek employment outside the British Empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He eventually found work with China\u2019s Ching emperor in Manchuria where a plague was raging, eventually claiming 60,000 lives. Recognising it as pneumonic, Wu recommended use of multi-layered masks he designed to protect users against airborne infection, now recognised as forerunner of the N95 mask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His later analysis of the socio-behavioural determinants of zoonotic transmission of the epidemic was also pioneering. Sadly, a famous French doctor, Gerald Mesny, who rejected Wu\u2019s mask advice as diagnostically wrong, died of the plague soon after arrival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over a century later, and over two decades after the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis exposed the systemic financial fragility creating conditions for the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, the reluctance to learn from the East continues, ignoring Prophet Muhammad\u2019s advice to \u201cseek knowledge, even unto China\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n — <\/strong>BERNAMA<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jomo Kwame Sundaram, an economist, was the Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development in the United Nations<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" COVID-19 infection and death rates in the Western world and many developing countries in Asia…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[524],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/e1ade12472c8137563037ef8e21efe6c5fab9bd254787.jpg",1096,584,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/e1ade12472c8137563037ef8e21efe6c5fab9bd254787-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/e1ade12472c8137563037ef8e21efe6c5fab9bd254787-300x160.jpg",300,160,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/e1ade12472c8137563037ef8e21efe6c5fab9bd254787-768x409.jpg",640,341,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/e1ade12472c8137563037ef8e21efe6c5fab9bd254787-1024x546.jpg",640,341,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/e1ade12472c8137563037ef8e21efe6c5fab9bd254787.jpg",1096,584,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/e1ade12472c8137563037ef8e21efe6c5fab9bd254787.jpg",1096,584,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/e1ade12472c8137563037ef8e21efe6c5fab9bd254787.jpg",1096,584,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/e1ade12472c8137563037ef8e21efe6c5fab9bd254787.jpg",1024,546,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/e1ade12472c8137563037ef8e21efe6c5fab9bd254787.jpg",720,384,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Nation<\/a>","tag_info":"Nation","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7922,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7921\/revisions\/7922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"east](\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/e1ade12472c8137563037ef8e21efe6c5fab9bd254787-1024x546.jpg\")
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