Examining the COVID-19 Pandemic Through an Interdisciplinary Lens

South Korea is a small country (about 39,000 square miles) on the tip of the Korean Peninsula. They are also a wealthy country, and most of the population lives in cities. In contrast, South Africa is a large country at about 470,000 square miles. Two-thirds of the populace lives in cities and one third live in rural areas ("South Africa: Summary"). These two countries were very different before the COVID pandemic struck, and they had different challenges to face when it did. Economics: Data from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health Comparative Health Policy Library. South Korea: GDP of South Korea is 1.642 trillion American Dollars (2020), population is 51 million people (2020). In terms of housing demographics, about 81.8% of population lives in urban area and 18.2% population lives in rural area (2009). South Africa: GDP of South Africa is 351.4 billion American Dollars (2020) with a population of 59 million (2020). In terms of housing demographics,...

The below figures summarize the timeline of COVID-19 in both South Korea and South Africa.

South Africa South Africa received much praise for their early management of the pandemic. The first case arrived in the country on March 5th and the government acted quickly, with President Cyril Ramaphosa declaring a level 5 National State of Disaster on March 26, 2020. South Africa's early pandemic response leveraged its experience in treating HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis to set up mobile testing units, which kept the growth rate in the early days of the pandemic below a 3% daily increase (Devermont and Mukulu). The government also focused on a science-based approach, frequently consulting with scientists and projections from modeling consortiums. The government also followed the guidance of scientists when they mobilized over 28,000 healthcare workers, allowing them to efficiently test large parts of the population. They also reached out to the WHO for assistance, with thousands of healthcare professionals and public health experts receiving training (Kaluwa and Ramadan). However,...

South Africa: COVID hit the South African economy hard. South Africa’s labor market has been performing poorly over the last 10 years, and the pandemic only exacerbated the issue. On top of that, job-losses were distributed unequally, which only widened economic inequality. Among low-wage workers, employment dropped by 35% between January 2020 and April 2020. However, for those in the top 20% of earners employment dropped by only 10% (World Bank Group). South Africans suffered more than just economic impacts from COVID-19, public trust in the government was also affected. South Africa adopted a global-north biomedical response model that was not well adapted to most of the population. The government also did not implement these policies fairly and effectively. As a result, poor people died in large numbers and were prevented from practicing their customary funeral rites. Rural people were scared of the harsh way the government chose to enforce restrictions on funerary practice...

Similarly, South Africa and South Korea both stressed testing, contact tracing, and communication in their response to the pandemic. However, South Africa and South Korea differ in some disparities that predate the pandemic. For example, South Africa has a large wealth disparity on racial lines due to apartheid (Devermont and Mukulu). The wealth disparities between white and black South Africans influences which groups will be more vulnerable from policy decisions. During the pandemic, the vast majority of ventilators were distributed to private hospitals that are too expensive for most South Africans, and black South Africans adults live the furthest away from clinics (Devermont and Mukulu). Therefore, the unequal distribution of resources and access to healthcare facilities disproportionally hurts the less wealthy and black South Africans. While South Korea doesn’t have prominent racial wealth disparities, South Korea does still have economic disparity with 44% of all assets being ow...

In South Africa, the government created an official government website for COVID-19 related information, such as infection statistics, vaccine updates, and speeches from the Minister of Health and the President. The official website also provides a National Health Hotline, available through email, phone, and WhatsApp (SAcoronavirus.co.za). A text-message system and the COVID-Alert SA app, which employs bluetooth connection to communicate when a person has been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, were also deployed to provide information about mitigation measures and the virus (Matamanda et al.). Both the app and text messages provide information about monitoring symptoms and accessing healthcare services (SAcoronavirus.co.za). For the most part though, much communication about COVID-19 was done through television (Wasserman). Besides these more traditional forms of communication, the South African government also recognized the potential effects of socia...

References: An, Julia Ah-Reum, et al. “How South Korea Responded to the COVID-19 Outbreak in Daegu.” Nejm Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery, Massachusetts Medical Society, 17 June 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7390493/. “Building Back Better from Covid-19, with a Special Focus on Jobs.” Building Back Better from COVID-19, with a Special Focus on Jobs, World Bank, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/161431626102808095/pdf/Building-Back-Better-from-COVID-19-with-a-Special-Focus-on-Jobs.pdf. Cha, Victor, and Dana Kim. “A Timeline of South Korea's Response to Covid-19.” CSIS, 27 Mar. 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/timeline-south-koreas-response-covid-19#:~:text=South%20Korea%20saw%20its%20first,South%20Korea%27s%20third%2Dlargest%20city. Choi, Seongwon. “COVID-19: Lessons from South Korean Pandemic Communications Strategy.” International Journal of Healthcare Management, vol. 14, pp. 271-279, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1080/20479700.2020.1862997 Coro...