But SK also published that location data online for all to see, something the US cannot do because HIPPA. People would make fun of those with the virus, such as one man who was tracked to a hotel associated with prostitution.
I hope public identifying information isn't strictly necessary for the South Korean model but let's keep this in perspective. The alternatives to SK's privacy invasions are total lockdown, or mass unnecessary death.
This didn't help much. It created a false sense of security when it appeared that the first 21 cases were contained. People went to gatherings (which caused the recent spike). It also doesn't help if you know what hotels are infected; plenty of other spots can be infected as well.
Case 26 was blamed as "patient zero" but he had actually shown no symptoms 6 weeks after returning from China. He got infected elsewhere. But the media places unfair judgement on him.
This is fine! We don't need to publish who is sick. (We shouldn't.) Just aggregated geographic statistics. HIPAA does not interfere with that.
And then you find out the taxi drivers, all the McDonalds workers, and everybody who used McDonalds and the bank at the same time, and tell them to go self-quarantine for two weeks. And also test them. The idea is basically catch all the virus before it has a chance to run into more people.
It does help that Koreans carry cell phones and use credit cards everywhere. (And, yes it does raise the question about privacy - which is something we should revisit once the emergency is over.)
And if they do not relinquish it later, no problem, we'll fight and get them back again.
I take humour over funerals any day.