lovetravellingoz
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- Jul 13, 2006
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Lockdown seems to be used differently in different countries. Australia certainly has not lockdowned like say Italy, the UK or NZ did.
However South Korea did close down more than schools, though not as much activity as Australia did.
Scores of events -- from K-pop concerts to sports seasons -- had been delayed or cancelled, while museums and galleries were closed and religious services suspended.
Like Australia South Korea seem to be in the process of relaxing their social distancing measures;
South Korea to ease social distancing rules - World - The Jakarta Post
South Korea said Sunday it will loosen social distancing rules this week to allow gatherings and events to take place after the number of new coronavirus cases dropped significantly in recent days.
I was mainly asking about the future and in short in a week or two it would seem that our approach going forward is going to be quite similar to South Korea's:
- ample testing
- have a high ability to contact trace, including the use of technology
- jump on hotspots, including quarantining any close contacts of known cases
As such, instead of physical lockdown, we fought the virus through an epidemiological approach such as wide diagnostic testing and isolation of contacts, while encouraging people’s voluntary cooperation for social distancing.
South Korea’s Health Minister on How His Country Is Beating Coronavirus Without a Lockdown
"We never considered a full lockdown," Park Neung-hoo tells TIME
Remember that Australia could not go this way initially as we:
1/ Did not have access to vast quantities of tests ( We rapidly ramped up and going forward will soon have another 10 million tests available. So we can now test at high levels. Early on we could not)
2/ Did not have ample contact tracing resources ( Our public health had some, but thousands of extra staff have now been hired and trained. The ADF was called in, but will ultimately go back)
3/ Did not have Covid Safe.
4/ Had a population less used to past viral outbreaks and so put in place more rules and mandates, rather than seeking voluntary following of guidelines (though in Australia much was volunatary as well).
ScoMo has indicated that we needed all of the first three of the above in order to reactivate things.
3/ Is probably more important to Australia as the main difference is that privacy issues will not allow us to use ICT as much as South Korea did/will.
ICT plays a decisive role in accurately identifying people and swiftly locating their contacts. For example, tracing them through credit card usage, CCTV, mobile phone location tracing, and so on helps us to learn about a patient’s travel time, route and location quickly, and can also help to identify close contacts of the patient. The faster we find the contacts, the better we are able to stem further spread of the virus.
Having said that ICT is being used here in Australia where the law allows as for example:
- Brother In Law had flu like symptoms this week. With the expansion of who can be tested he went to one of the free public testing sites that have been set up to do 100,000 tests in 14 days. He was instructed to drive straight home and self-isolate till the test results where known which he did.
- Later another person was driving his car and was pulled up by the police wanting to know why they were breaching the self-isolation instruction! A quick ID check verified that this was not so. But it did demonstrate that the BIL's car rego had been entered into a database that the police were using and presumably his car had been identified by scanning of number plates!
While masks is one difference, in Australia as Covid 19 never became common the wearing of masks to help stop its spread was not recommended. Yes with the flu and common cold it would be a good habit in future if Australians adopted mask wearing to minimise spread. from those with symptoms
At present I think South Korea still requires 14 day quarantine for all inbound passengers.
Stronger measures for infection prevention and control of overseas entrants
In light of the increasing number of COVID-19 patients and confirmed cases among incoming arrivals, the Korean government imposed a mandatory 14 day quarantine on all passengers arriving from all parts of the world from 00:00, April 1.
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코로나바이러스감염증-19 정식 누리집으로 호흡기환자진료센터, 국내발생현황, 국외발생현황, 시도별발생현황, 확진시 조치안내, 국민‧보건의료인용 핵심정보안내, 공지사항
ncov.mohw.go.kr
