…Min has been following the situation in the United States, where his daughter attends college. But he seemed surprised, and alarmed, by what I told him—especially about the shortage of diagnostic tests and hospital beds. We spoke in Korean; his account has been translated, edited, and condensed:
At the end of January, I warned the mayor of Daegu that a pandemic was coming. I had spoken with hospitals in China and received information from the doctors. Within a few weeks, we had 11 cases, most of them members of Shincheonji [a Christian movement]. My thought was, “This could spread really, really fast. We have to stop this.”
When I was in the military, I practiced a lot of war simulations. So I immediately contacted local military hospitals and said, “Get ready”…
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Read full story on Wired.com here: https://www.wired.com/story/a-south-korean-covid-19-czar-has-some-advice-for-trump/
For a related story, see https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/26/821688981/how-south-korea-reigned-in-the-outbreak-without-shutting-everything-down on NPR.com