Successful control of COVID-19 outbreak through tracing, testing, and isolation: Lessons learned from the outbreak control efforts made in a metropolitan city of South Korea

• Main Authors: Seung-Ji Kang (Author), Sooyeon Kim (Author), Kyung-Hwa Park (Author), Sook In Jung (Author), Min-Ho Shin (Author), Sun-Seog Kweon (Author), Hyang Park (Author), Seong-Woo Choi (Author), Eungyu Lee (Author), So Yeon Ryu (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Elsevier, 2021-09-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.

Summary

The first surge of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases began on June 27, 2020 in Gwangju metropolitan city, located in the southwestern part of South Korea, with a population of 1,501,000. Local governments and the Korean Center for Disease Control and Prevention immediately started an epidemiologic investigation and traced the contacts of patients using a wide variety of data sources, including location data from mobile devices, credit card transaction, and closed-circuit television footage. Until July 16, 2020, 138 community transmission cases and 10 infection clusters were identified across the city. Through contact tracing, epidemiologic relatedness was found in 136 (98.6%) of 138 cases. Our investigation showed how the extensive and meticulous contact tracing suppressed COVID-19 outbreak in a populated city.

Item Description

1876-0341
10.1016/j.jiph.2021.07.003