Experts in the U.S. and European health sectors are expressing their admiration for the speed and scale of the Korean health authorities’ handling of the coronavirus test. The government also highly evaluates the throughput and speed of Korea’s COVID-19 diagnostic tests, as well as the transparency of information released through official briefings twice a day.
Scott Gottlieb, former director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, released a report on the status of the COVID-19 outbreak on his Twitter account on Monday, saying, “The report by Korean health authorities is very detailed.”
South Korea reports 161 new cases of #coronavirus and 1 fatality; raising their total to 763 cases, 7 dead. Japan isn’t testing as much and has a high percent of unlinked cases relative to its total. Japan may be a big hot spot pic.twitter.com/jyy8sF5Bpv
— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) February 24, 2020
“In Korea, nearly 20,000 people have already finished their diagnostic tests or are waiting for the results,” he wrote. “Korea is showing considerable diagnostic capabilities.”
Marion Koopmans, a world-renowned MERS expert, also retweeted a tweet on Monday that South Korea’s health authorities conducted a COVID-19 examination on 25,000 people and determined 600 confirmed cases. Then she said, “Korea lab capacity….Wow!” she wrote.
Korea lab capacity….WOW https://t.co/S8M8tkj7hH
— Marion Koopmans (@MarionKoopmans) February 23, 2020
There was also a comment comparing Korea’s COVID-19 diagnosis capability to other countries.
Scott Gottlieb said, “There is a possibility that more confirmed people will come from Japan, which has fewer cases of COVID-19 compared to Korea’s diagnosis status.” On Twitter on Monday, he said, “Japan is not testing as much as Korea. “Japan has a high proportion of cases where there is no link between the two,” he said. “Japan could be a huge hot spot.”
Japan has 146 confirmed cases, 7 listed as serious. They’ve only tested around 1,500 people.
— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) February 24, 2020
In other tweets, he also stressed that Japan only tested 1,500 people, but with the exception of passengers on the Diamond Princess, there are 146 confirmed people, and that there are already significant confirmed people.
Some context, South Korea has tested 27,852 people for #COVID19. Impressive lab capacity that the United States does not appear to have in place yet.
More details from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: https://t.co/cU4EkVAGKC https://t.co/C8BWzz9zV7
— David Lim (@davidalim) February 24, 2020
David Lim, a health reporter for U.S. media Politico, also tweeted on Monday that South Korea examined 27,852. The U.S. does not seem to have such inspection capabilities yet,” it said.
Another expert analyzed that the number of confirmed COVID-19 patients seems to have increased rapidly due to Korea’s outstanding diagnostic capabilities.
“Korea’s confirmed cases may seem numerous in some ways, but they stem from Korea’s high diagnostic capabilities, freedom of speech, and democratic and responsible systems,” said Andrei Abramian, a visiting researcher at Korea George Mason University. “There are very few countries with all of this,” he said.