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

Seung-Ji Kang; Sooyeon Kim; Kyung-Hwa Park; Sook In Jung; Min-Ho Shin; Sun-Seog Kweon; Hyang Park; Seong-Woo Choi; Eungyu Lee; So Yeon Ryu

doi:10.1016/j.jiph.2021.07.003

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

J Infect Public Health. 2021 Sep;14(9):1151-1154. doi: 10.1016/j.jiph.2021.07.003. Epub 2021 Jul 13.

Authors

Seung-Ji Kang¹, Sooyeon Kim², Kyung-Hwa Park³, Sook In Jung³, Min-Ho Shin⁴, Sun-Seog Kweon⁴, Hyang Park⁵, Seong-Woo Choi⁶, Eungyu Lee⁷, So Yeon Ryu⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Internal Medicine, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Republic of Korea; Jeonnam Communicable Disease Management Support Team, Muan, Jeollanamdo, Republic of Korea.
² Jeonnam Communicable Disease Management Support Team, Muan, Jeollanamdo, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Internal Medicine, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Republic of Korea.
⁴ Department of Preventive Medicine, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Republic of Korea.
⁵ Bureau of Welfare and Health, Gwangju Metropolitan City, Gwangju, Republic of Korea.
⁶ Department of Preventive Medicine, College of Medicine, Chosun University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea.
⁷ Chungcheong Regional Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Korea Disease Control Agency, Republic of Korea.
⁸ Department of Preventive Medicine, College of Medicine, Chosun University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea; Gwangju Center for Infectious Disease Control and Prevention, Gwangju, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: [email protected].

Abstract

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.

Keywords: COVID-19; Contact tracing; Isolation; SARS-CoV-2; Testing.

MeSH terms

COVID-19*
Contact Tracing
Disease Outbreaks / prevention & control
Humans
Republic of Korea / epidemiology
SARS-CoV-2