key: cord-0956250-8urqoov1
authors: Ma, Sang-Hyuk
title: Shortcomings of the Korean Government's Policies to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic and Suggestions for Improvement
date: 2021-05-20
journal: J Korean Med Sci
DOI: 10.3346/jkms.2021.36.e156
sha: 00219e7e7403fdbf6eb21858105f5fd36fe2ffed
doc_id: 956250
cord_uid: 8urqoov1

nan

infectious diseases would be provided. However, the lack of communication between the government ministries and medical society, the insufficient number of experts in public positions, redundant bureaucracy, and the lack of communication between the government and medical experts emerged as troublesome in coping adequately with the propagation of COVID-19.

In February 2020, a large number of patients were infected with the virus in Daegu Metropolitan City in Korea, which was later resolved thanks to the dedication of the Daegu City Medical Association and various volunteers. 4 This can be referred to as the true sense of "K-prevention of epidemics." Nevertheless, the central and local governments of Korea tended not to accept medical experts' opinions in making pertinent policies, which caused further chaos in the implementation of quarantine policies.

The incidence of COVID-19 infection increases as human-to-human contact increases. In November 2020, the Korean government announced a policy to encourage travel. This led a large number of people to leave for travels, which increased contact among people, which in turn caused many people to be infected with the virus. This became a public health crisis in the metropolitan area. This crisis was ultimately caused by the policy failures of the Korean government.

From the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak to the present, the Korean government has neglected to provide medical staff with updated and detailed information about the epidemic, so they have encountered many difficulties in taking care of patients with COVID-19. Consequently, medical staff were obliged to search for "illegal information" from the internet and referred to it for the care of patients.

In November 2020, the Korean government decided to increase the number of COVID-19 screening tests, including preemptive ones, as the number of patients increased. This decision was made to reduce the incidence of COVID-19 infection by locating even asymptomatic patients through increasing the number of tests. However, the number of patients who tested positive for coronavirus remained very low, and the estimated cost for locating a patient with COVID-19 reached 76 million KRW in the case of Pohang City, which was by no means cost-effective. 5 The Korean government continued to implement the quarantine policy by conducting many tests, but the increasing number of tests alone did not help to decrease the number of patients with COVID-19.

In the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people were skeptical about developing vaccines, but many pharmaceutical companies in Korea participated in the development of vaccines. The Korean government established a department that was in charge of vaccines from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it solely clung on the Korean-made vaccines which could not guarantee success. 6 Moreover, the National Assembly of Korea did not adequately secure the budget for the vaccine. Consequently, the Korean government made a very late contract with a vaccine company in December 2020. However, the amount of vaccine doses under contract was not sufficient, and this problem was not reported to the public. 6 In the case of the AstraZeneca vaccine, 90% of the vaccinated people experienced adverse reactions to the vaccine. Furthermore, some patients suffered from severe symptoms from the vaccine, even people in their 20s−40s. Compared to the Pfizer vaccine, AstraZeneca vaccine caused more adverse reactions. 7 The Korean government did not undertake a full investigation into the adverse reactions, considering them as mild and inevitable immune reactions to the

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