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Comment by hntrowaway837 | Hacker News Reader

And what exactly did they do SO much better? My country wore masks, no social gatherings, distancing. What more?

I lived in South Korea 2019-2021. On top of what you said above, they have a very good very intense contact tracing system, in SK the phone/bank/government are pretty inter-connected, it's not difficult for the government to literally hunt down cluster infections and force people into quarantine, and they did. They sent out over sms the exact times and locations of places people who had covid visited, etc, etc. I think contact tracing, Koreans taking it very seriously, wearing masks correctly, actually social distancing kept things under control. Koreans a very good at following instructions when they decide to, and they do it diligently.

I'm not sure how I am expected to answer that question without knowing which country you are asking me to compare.

If you need to know, France. I live in Paris, people here are very docile and obey the rules.

As an outsider looking at France's news about vaccination rates and hesitancy, it certainly doesn't look like your fellow citizens trust public health officials. Although, I've never really had the impression that French people trusted authority. Quite the opposite.

But regardless, South Korea acted way quicker than any western democracy to test and trace.

They don't but they obeyed, these are different things. Also France is decently vaccinated, yes some people don't plan to because they distrust government even more after this period.

By comparison, streets in South Korea were reported as being largely empty after around the time of their first COVID death, even though their authorities only suggested people stay home.

Sometimes, public health is in the hands of the public.

Happened here too. With the first mention of lockdown it felt like a handbrake. I frankly don't see what people could've done more. Old people had trouble getting groceries.

Bullshit. People obeyed the first lockdown when everything was chaotic but since then it's been pretty hit and miss. People in the metro with no masks/mask under the nose, flouting of curfews, etc. If i had to guesstimate, around 20-30% of people didn't respect the social distancing and related measures.

Source: live in Paris

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