Crisis Learning and Flattening the Curve: South Korea’s Rapid and Massive Diagnosis of the COVID-19 Infection

• Published date: 01 August 2020
• Date: 01 August 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0275074020941733
• Author: KyungWoo Kim,Joon-Young Hur
• Subject Matter: The Case For & Against BureaucracyLeading By Example: Bureaucratic Success Stories in the Fight Against COVID-19

https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020941733

American Review of Public Administration

2020, Vol. 50(6-7) 606 –613

© The Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0275074020941733

journals.sagepub.com/home/arp

Leading By Example: Bureaucratic Success Stories in the Fight Against COVID-19

Introduction

Crisis learning has potential to influence the response of an

organization or a network of organizations to a current or a

future crisis. Learning from past crises helps prepare for a

future crisis that may have similar characteristics. Moreover,

learning from a developing crisis is critical for adapting to

unique aspects of that crisis. Crisis learning is facilitated by

focusing on the crisis (Birkland, 1997), experience (Comfort,

1994), virtual exercise (Lagadec, 1990), shared understand-

ing (Comfort, 2007), and culture and leadership (Broekema

et al., 2017). However, the ability to learn lessons from a

crisis can be limited by an unclear relationship between

cause and consequences, defensive attitudes, a rigid response

to a problem, and time pressures (Moynihan, 2008).

Crisis learning is important for improving the capacity of

response organizations to cope with an epidemic crisis, like

the COVID-19 outbreak. An epidemic crisis generates high

uncertainty and collective stress for disease control agencies

and for networks of response organizations because of its

rapidly evolving and transboundary nature (Ansell et al.,

2010). National governments are facing severe challenges in

responding to the COVID-19 outbreak. Announced as a pan-

demic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March

12, 2020, it has affected 213 countries and resulted in the

confirmed cases of 2,995,758 people and the deaths of

204,987, as of April 30, 2020 (WHO, 2020a). National gov-

ernments have adopted a wide range of strategies to mitigate

the transmission of the virus in their countries (Blavantik

School of Government, 2020), with many governments

adjusting their response strategies on the basis of other gov-

ernments’ actions (Weible et al., 2020).

Crisis learning enabled South Korea to flatten the COVID-

19 infection curve—specifically, by applying lessons from

both past epidemics and the current outbreak. After the country

suffered from 2015 Middle East respiratory syndrome corona-

virus (MERS) outbreak, the Korea Centers for Disease Control

& Prevention (KCDC), the national disease control agency,

improved its surveillance system by establishing a 24-hr

Emergency Operation Center (EOC) to collect information

about real-time domestic and international infectious diseases.

Moreover, the KCDC adopted measures such as emergency

use authorization (EUA) to speed up the development and the

941733ARPXXX10.1177/0275074020941733The American Review of Public AdministrationHur and Kim

research-article2020

1Korea Institute of Public Administration, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Corresponding Author:

KyungWoo Kim, Korea Institute of Public Administration, 235,

Jinheung-ro, Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul 03367, Republic of Korea.

Email: keithkim81@gmail.com

Crisis Learning and Flattening the Curve:

South Korea’s Rapid and Massive

Diagnosis of the COVID-19 Infection

Joon-Young Hur1 and KyungWoo Kim1

Abstract

Crisis learning is critical for ensuring that better actions are taken for an impending or a future crisis. Learning from

past epidemics enables public health authorities to assess aspects of the overall response system to improve the system.

Moreover, learning during a crisis makes it possible to develop an approach to address unique and rapidly evolving epidemic

situations. In this study, the literature was reviewed, and interviews were conducted with a director of the Korea Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention and a regulatory manager of a multinational medical equipment company. On the basis

of that research, this article examines how crisis learning has facilitated a South Korean disease control agency’s surveillance

of infectious diseases and its development of in vitro diagnosis kits. Those kits enabled qualified private health providers

to diagnose COVID-19 infections in cooperation with multiple partners in the early period of the outbreak response. The

agency’s learning from a past epidemic crisis, shared sense-making, and proactive efforts helped the nation to flatten the

curve of the numbers of the confirmed cases in a short period of time. This study provides insights for national public health

authorities tackling infectious disease outbreaks.

Keywords

crisis learning, COVID-19, epidemics