By Swee Kheng Khor and David Heymann
Just as a heart attack can jolt a person into changing habits for the better, a pandemic can spur a nation to profoundly improve its public health systems and policies. The harsh experience with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003—and to a lesser extent, H1N1 in 2009–10 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2014–15—had such an effect on East Asian countries. China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, among other states, retooled their public health systems after SARS in a manner that allowed them to mount particularly effective responses to COVID-19.
As the world struggles with the coronavirus pandemic, East Asian countries lead the way in both control and recovery. They consistently report lower death rates from COVID-19 than do countries in Europe and North America, suggesting that their governments have been better able to protect those at risk of serious illness and death. By and large, their public discourse has already shifted to restarting the economy and public life instead of remaining focused on initial measures to flatten the curve of infections. East Asian societies have demonstrated solidarity, rather than allowing the disease and its control to become unnecessarily politicized or weaponized. At the root of the efficacy of this response lie the hard-won lessons of the region’s experience with SARS.
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