[BBC] Coronavirus: South Korea seeing a 'stabilising trend'

[Andrew Marr] First, let’s turn to South Korea because they have seen a slowdown in number of cases and may just be over the worst. How have they done it?  I am joined live from Seoul by South Korea’s Foreign Minister, Kang Kyung-wha. Foreign Minister, thanks for joining us.

 

[강경화 장관] Yes, thank you for having me, Mr. Marr.

 

[Andrew Marr] You have as a country adopted a particular strategy towards this. (Yes.) Just explain to us the basis of your strategy.

 

[강경화 장관] Well, the basic principle is openness, transparency and fully keeping the public informed. And I think this is paying off.  We have very good health care system to begin with. We have a system that is highly wired as you can imagine. And fully utilising that we have dealt with this outbreak from the very beginning, with full transparency and that’s the way we’ve won the public trust and support for this and as you say, we are seeing a stabilizing trend. For 3 days in a row, the number of newly confirmed positive cases is smaller than the number of those fully cured and released.

 

[Andrew Marr] You’ve also got most extraordinary testing system. You are testing I think 20,000 people a day which is far more than any other country of your size. How have you managed to achieve this and why is testing central to what you are doing?

 

[강경화 장관] Well first of all, testing is central because that leads to early detection, it minimizes further spread and it quickly treats those found with the virus and I think that’s the key behind our very low fatality rate as well. I think our system quickly approved the testing system after the Chinese authorities released the genetic sequence of the virus in mid-January. Our health authorities quickly conferred with the research institutions here and then shared that result with the pharmaceutical companies who then produced the reagent and the equipment needed for the testing. And so, I think our testing is nearly a quarter of a million at this point. 268,000 as of today.

 

[Andrew Marr] That’s remarkable. The other thing that you do of course is that you monitor people afterwards. You are not going into the same kind of lockdown, social exclusion that a lot of European countries are. Instead you are monitoring people by phone app. Again, can you explain why you are doing that and not closing down large chunks of your country?

 

[강경화 장관] Well, I think this is being faithful to the values of our very vibrant democracy which is open and you know the government fully in the service of the people and I have to say our public is very demanding and expects the highest standards from government services.  I think this is the key, the drive of our response to this. We are monitoring very closely the inbound traffic, we have also put in place vetting of outbound traffic so that we minimize the risk coming in from the inbound traffic but also make sure that we do our very best to contain the spread within country but also taking steps to vet those with possible symptoms among those who are leaving the country. 

 

[Andrew Marr] The number of new cases is slowing down. Do you think you are over the worst now?

 

[강경화 장관] Well, the peak of new cases was in late February when we had hit over 900 new confirmed cases. That has now come down to 76 new cases as of today. So yes, we are definitely seeing a normalizing trend in reduction of new cases but of course we are not complacent.

This is just not about us. And we are taking this approach of openness and transparency not just domestically but to the international community because we are a country that is highly interdependent with the rest of the world. Our people travel a great deal, on businesses, on family businesses, on tourism. Our economy depends on this interdependency with the outside world. So, we want to keep the doors open with the other countries. And so as this disease spreads to many more countries, we are watching very closely, and we are committed to maintaining our open approach. It may not be applicable in other countries with less IT infrastructure and other values. But I think in the end, we have to acknowledge that this is not going to last time a novel pathogen becomes a global health threat. So we hope that our experience and our approach and model (not only) informs other countries dealing with this Covid 19 but also (leads) to greater international collaboration for better preparedness when this comes around next time.

 

[Andrew Marr] As it will in your view, even if you get through this, this is not the end of the episode. This is the beginning of a new way of living, almost.

 

[강경화 장관] Yes, one thing I would also like to point out, as governments we also have to guard against panic. I think governments have to be cool headed about this and do what we do based on evidence and science. Because I think declaration of pandemic by the WHO risks turning the spread of the virus into a spread of fear and phobia. I can’t tell you how many incidents I get reports of Asians, not just Koreans, being verbally abused, even physically attacked in other countries. And this, governments have to take responsibility to stop this kind of incident because that is not helpful to generating the spirit of collaboration that we absolutely need to overcome this challenge together, globally. 

 

[Andrew Marr] Indeed, Minister, thanks very much for talking to us this morning.

딕테이션 출처: 외교부 홈페이지 - 뉴포커스

(http://www.mofa.go.kr/www/brd/m_4076/view.do?seq=368556&srchFr=&srchTo=&srchWord=&srchTp=&multi_itm_seq=0&itm_seq_1=0&itm_seq_2=0&company_cd=&company_nm=&page=1)

BBC에 강경화 장관 인터뷰가 떴다고 해서 찾아보고 딕테해 볼까 했는데 외교부에서 먼저 딕테를 올려줬다. 번역본은 따로지만...

한국의 코로나19 바이러스 대응에 대한 해외 반응은 주로 '어떻게 이만한 팬데믹에 시민들이 패닉에 빠지지 않으면서도 정부가 질병을 통제할 수 있는 것인가'이다. 나야 한국에 있으니 한국 정부의 일처리나 질병 통제에 대한 시민들의 협조가 당연한 것으로 느껴지지만 다른 나라는 그렇지 않은 모양이다.

며칠 전 흥미로운 글을 읽었다. 아마 홍콩 사우스 차이나 모닝 포스트의 기사였던 것 같은데, '아시아인들은 다른 사람들에게 전염시키지 않기 위해 마스크를 쓰지만, 유럽과 북미 사람들은 환자가 아닌데 마스크를 써야 한다는 데 거부감을 느낀다'는 요지의 글이었다. 내가 정확히 기억하고 쓰는 문장인지는 모르겠다. 다만 코로나19 바이러스 사태에 대한 아시아와 유럽, 북미인들의 마스크 착용을 문화적 관점에서 분석한 글이었다. 그 기사는 또한 2003-4년 사스와 같은 대규모 전염병의 경험 유무가 두 문화권의 대응에 영향을 미쳤을 것이라는 분석을 내놓기도 했다. 일련의 경험 속에서 아시아에서는 공동체에 대한 책임감이 더욱 뚜렷해졌고, 20세기 초 스페인 독감의 기억도 희미해진지 오래인 유럽과 북미에서는 마스크를 쓰지 않을 선택의 자유에 대한 인식이 강해진 듯 하다.

홉스가 '만인에 대한 만인의 투쟁'을 주장하긴 했지만, 모두가 자유를 넘어 방종의 상태를 유지한다면 혼란, 즉 위험에 빠진다는 그의 주장은 결국 인간은 모두 운명 공동체에 속해 있다는 인식에서 비롯된 것이 아닐까? 무질서를 피하는 방법은 인간의 자연권 양도라고 말하긴 했지만, 그의 주장 기저에는 자유 이면에 있는 운명 공동체 인식, 더 나아가 공동체에 대한 개인의 책임 인지가 있지 않았을까 싶다. (그럴 듯한 말로 포장해도 결국 '살고 싶으면 뭉치라'는 거지 뭐...)

현재 우리 정부는 국민의 책임 의식에 근거한 협조에 힘입어 개방성과 민주성, 사회 질서 유지라는 세 마리 토끼를 모두 잡아가고 있다. 뛰어난 기술력은 물론 그 기술을 언제 어디에 어떻게 써야 하는지를 알고 있는 덕분이기도 하다. 괜한 '국뽕'이 아니다. 여전히 아쉽고 미흡한 점이 있어 고쳐갈 이유는 분명히 존재한다. 하지만 그 이전에 개인의 자유와 사회에 대한 책임, 공동체 의식을 한국식 민주주의로 풀어가고 있는 우리에게 '이런 건 좀 자랑해도 된다', 이렇게 말하고 싶다. 더 이상 자학하지도 말고, 분열하지도 말고.