OPINION: The US Cannot Emulate South Korea or China
The US Army has joined the effort to stop the spread of COVID-19. (US Army)
Divjot Bawa (SFS ‘23) is a regular Compass World contributor and a guest writer for the Caravel's opinion section. The content and opinions of this piece are the writer’s and the writer’s alone. They do not reflect the opinions of the Caravel or its staff.
By March 2020, South Korea and China had become the center of the COVID-19 outbreak, with hundreds of new cases emerging daily. Yet, just a month later, South Korean and Chinese citizens are gearing up to return to work and school as small businesses and centers of education reopen. As widespread lockdowns continue in much of the world, frustrations with the lack of adequate testing capabilities and an increasing number of cases have raised concern and exasperation among constituents. Many citizens question why a simple emulation of one of these aforementioned models cannot occur. Yet, while this discontent may seem warranted at first glance, a closer analysis of the South Korean and Chinese models reveals that these two successes are truly outliers that the United States cannot hope to emulate.
A Democracy on Life Support
American health experts and media outlets internationally have praised the South Korean and Chinese responses, lauding the two models’ swift and targeted approaches. Whereas the former relied on the adoption of aggressive lockdowns and enforced quarantining early on, the latter used its sophisticated national healthcare system to conduct large-scale, free preventive testing and treatment. Though nuanced in their execution, both systems displayed a striking affinity for two measures: comprehensive testing and resilient social distancing measures (stringent lockdowns).
Meanwhile, most of the globe is at total economic and societal standstill. Countries are frantically mobilizing resources, devising strategies to suppress the rise of cases while simultaneously keeping uninfected residents safe. These approaches have ranged from leading scientists clamoring for federal investment into vaccine development to lawmakers lobbying for more and cheaper personal protective equipment to some even paradoxically demanding an end to the quarantine altogether. These strategies, among many others, have seen mixed, unpromising results.
As the United States begins to accept its tragic fate as the country with the most COVID-19 fatalities, Americans are questioning their government’s seemingly lackluster response. Why has a democratic economic powerhouse, home to leading scientific and technological innovations, failed to respond more effectively by imitating the response of countries that have seen demonstrable success? While these realities are painful to spell out, the inability of the United States to respond effectively is the direct result of systemic, institutional, and cultural norms that have become essential to the “American identity,” principles that are difficult to quickly dislodge in the face of a global pandemic.
Failing the Test
Democratic values, individualism, and public discourse are hallmarks of the United States’ system of government. Yet, many experts have indirectly attributed blame to such ideals for a delayed and dangerously inept U.S. response—specifically highlighting political and cultural fragmentation. While these values breed a culture where discourse is celebrated in the United States, it has directly contributed to overburdening political polarization; this sentiment itself has paralyzed a rapid U.S. response. This dynamic has played out for the world to see with the politicization of social distancing, the partisan divide over economic stimulus relief, and the failure of the administration to inspire confidence in a temporary lockdown. All this, and the added fear of a broken economy and an upcoming election, has only contributed to the country’s sluggish response. While this is by no means an attack on the benefits of American society, these ideals have revealed how the United States can spiral into incompetency if political polarization presides. This failure to unify and instill national solidarity—even in the face of a national crisis—is shocking for a country that, according to the Global Health Security Index, should be the most prepared for a global health crisis.
In comparison to South Korea and China, the United States’ resulting scattered federal response is laughable — specifically as it relates to testing. While China’s autocratic regime is built to act promptly, even South Korea’s politically polarized political system was able to support a swift response with more than 20 percent of the opposition party supporting the government’s initial response. Whereas South Korean health officials were able to engage with medical companies and develop accurate COVID-19 tests within a week, the United States took twice the time—only to have the Food and Drug Administration approve an unreliable and ultimately unusable test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These initial delays, all the fault of the government, have led experts to conclude that earlier testing would have made containment significantly easier.
Something Does Not Track
One overlooked aspect of the South Korean and Chinese responses is their incredible reliance on and deployment of tracking technologies. Their contact tracing systems have allowed health officials to effectively trace, monitor, and warn citizens of nearby infections within the country.
South Korea has prominently employed such tactics by creating a massive database of every citizen—infected or not. The state collects data from infected citizens’ credit cards, GPS systems, and cellphones to determine their location and interactions with other citizens. This process was accompanied by a South Korean app that all citizens are mandated to install, ensuring that individuals do not violate quarantine or social distancing restrictions.
While this use of technology has been proven to slow the spread of COVID-19, the tradeoff is evident: a significant invasion of privacy. Countries like the United States, which is struggling to fend off the virus, are significantly restricted in their actions by privacy laws that hamper the ability of health experts and public officials to gain access to critical medical information. While the United States lacks a GDPR-equivalent national privacy law, Americans have always been concerned with the misuse or exploitation of their personal information by third-party entities. This intrinsic skepticism has hampered the United States from simply replicating such tracing tactics. Without such access to contact tracing data, American research efforts to measure the effectiveness of social distancing or the spread of the virus have been significantly delayed.
Mirror, Mirror On the Wall
Presently, South Korea and China are supplying the United States with medical supplies and personal protective equipment. The United States has struggled to keep its head above water and still faces the inevitably protracted economic recovery that lies ahead.
With “social distancing” likely to become 2020’s mantra, it is imperative that the United States uses this pandemic as a wake-up call, as a long-overdue opportunity to recognize the need to make tangible changes in order to better prepare for a future pandemic.
Take data collection, for example. Observing states like Singapore and South Korea, some U.S. health officials have argued for anonymized data collection, citing the importance of incorporating decentralized approaches to contract tracing. While extensive contact tracing is better used in regions that are not in the middle of an outbreak, such developments will allow future government leaders to help citizens make safer decisions about how and when they reenter society. The current pandemic has even highlighted the successes of nationalized healthcare systems, pushing some leading experts to advocate for such a system that would simplify the financing and governance of healthcare.
While these events do not necessarily call for the immediate implementation of such progressive measures, the United States should take a hard look at itself in the mirror. It is time to leave U.S. exceptionalism in the past. We need to realize that American society lacks the political will and unity to accept the drastic measures other countries have taken—and might never be able to.
So do not count on our country developing an approach worth celebrating internationally. The U.S. will probably just limp by.
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