Coronavirus: Can South Korea be a model for virus-hit countries?

Instead of taking the Chinese approach of locking down affected cities, South Korea has embraced a model of open information, public participation and widespread testing.

Each confirmed coronavirus patient's contacts are traced and offered tests. The infected person's movements over the preceeding 14 days -- determined through credit card use, CCTV footage and mobile phone tracking -- are also posted on government websites, with text message alerts sent to people when a new infection emerges in the area where they live or work. The tactic has raised privacy concerns, but enables people to come forward for checks.

Testing fees are around 160,000 won (USD 134), but free for suspected patients -- people linked to confirmed cases -- or those who test positive, encouraging participation. That helps with early detection and tackling the spread of infection.

South Korea has conducted more diagnostic tests faster than any other country -- around 10,000 per day -- which specialists say has helped the country with early detection of patients and tackling the infection's epicentre.

In pic: A woman holding her phone showing emergency alert text messages announcing locations that confirmed COVID-19 patients have visited, among others, in Seoul.

South Korea can carry out more than 15,000 diagnostic tests a day, and had conducted 220,000 as of Wednesday. It has more than 500 designated testing clinics, including over 40 drive-through facilities that minimise contact between patients and medical workers.

The South has had the benefit of experience: it struggled with a lack of testing kits during the 2015 outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), prompting it to create a system to expedite approvals.

Within weeks of the outbreak emerging in China, newly-developed COVID-19 testing kits which show results in just six hours received emergency government approval and were made available for clinics.

Authorities have urged people to stay indoors, avoid meetings and minimise contact with others, in a so-called "social distancing" campaign, resulting in quiet streets and half-empty stores and restaurants, even in normally busy parts of Seoul.

Scores of events -- from K-pop concerts and sports games -- have been cancelled and most people wear masks.

Several factors are behind the South's unusually low death rate -- 0.77 per cent against a global average of 3.4 per cent. Early detection enables early treatment, and widespread testing means mild or asymptomatic cases are more likely to be identified, driving up the total number of cases so the proportion dying goes down.

In addition, the infected population in the South has a unique profile: most of the country's infections are in women, and nearly half are in people aged below 40.

But global figures show the virus is most deadly among older generations, and men in particular.

Japan -- where nearly 600 people have been infected, with 12 deaths -- has not undertaken widespread testing and could learn from South Korea's response.

Testing is a crucial initial step to control the virus. It's very hard for the authorities -- the government -- to take the plunge in doing that.