Coronavirus: How South Korea is beating Covid despite 600,000 new cases a day, highest in the world
- Mass testing, largely abandoned in many countries as Covid-19 becomes endemic, is a key reason behind South Korea’s sliding death rate
- The fatality rate is a tenth of the US’s and the UK’s and down from 0.88 per cent two months ago, even as cases have surged eighty-fold at the same time
South Korea has reached two seemingly contradictory pandemic milestones: It recorded more than 600,000 new Covid-19 infections on Thursday, the most of anywhere in the world. At the same time, the country has one of the lowest virus death rates globally.
While anywhere else an infection surge of this size would signal an out-of-control outbreak soon to be followed by a spike in fatalities, in South Korea the picture is more complex.
The sky-high caseload reflects the nation’s consistent deployment of mass testing, largely abandoned by many places as Covid-19 becomes endemic but a key reason behind Korea’s sliding death rate, according to its virus fighters.
Continuing to officially diagnose most infections allows Korea to identify at-risk cases and pre-emptively treat or hospitalise those patients before their conditions become severe.
Combined with an 88 per cent vaccination rate – and one of the highest booster shot take-ups in the world, especially among the elderly – it’s delivered a fatality rate of 0.14 per cent. That is one-10th of the rates in the US and the UK and down from 0.88 per cent two months ago, even as cases have surged eighty-fold in the same time frame.
