WORLD No.1 K-Quarantine

Jo Yes, so actually I have tested twice for corona.
Ch Me too.
Ili Because I’m a citizen. So I have voted right.
Jo “Oh, don’t go back, you can’t go back, stay here” I said “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.

Ili We are talking about the Corona here in South Korea, you guys here for whole time, right?
Jo NO.
Ili NO?
Jo Right when it started to get bad in Korea, my friends messaged me. oh, my gash what I’m gonna do? I have family event, so I autually had to go back to America.
Ch In Fabruary?
Jo At the beginning of March. As soon as I arrived, everyone goes like don’t go close Joseph, corona no, no, no. I was like, oh my gash. I wasn’t really close Seoul or Daegu. When I came back, that’s right when America start getting bad.
Ili Right now even in Russia is in huge explosion of virus. Russia is like No3 right now in the world in terms of the number of infected.
Ili It’s not a place you want to be probably.
Ili What about you? You came to South Korea this year, right?
Ch I moved here on January 3rd, officially.
Ili So, basically before the whole thing explode.
Ch I think a month leading up to January, there was a lot of news about virus. You kept getting notifications on the phone, I got these a lot about fine dust, hot weather you really don’t notice it, and as soon as I moved across, it started going up, everything went a bit sour, social lives, work lives. Such an unfortunate timing to start a new life.
Ili South Korea definitely is one of the safest places.
Ili At least I feel it like that. What about you? Did you want to go back from States to here? No Korea is doomed.
Jo Korea does much better job, I was actually excited coming back to Korea. Most of friend said “Oh, don’t go back, you can’t go back, stay here” I said “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
Ili So just I live close to Itaewon right, during the outbreak I don’t actually go to Itaewon, because I live in the area that is quite far from Itaewon.
Ili And they did. It was completely free. I got the text message from government, if you are in the area, got any symptom, and suspect you might have symptoms, you can go to the public health center. Just say that if you are from Itaewon, it will be completely free.
Ili Did you get tested for corona virus?
Jo Yes so actually I have tested twice for corona.
Ch Me too.
Jo Really?
Ch Social distance. I’m sorry.
Ili You are not supposed to do that.
Jo Hand sanitizer, please.
Ch I’ve been tested twice as well. So the first time was my intermediate period. I just moved cross, it was start of March.
Ch And the second time I went to Itaewon at the end of April. I was at the bar. Tuesday night hanging out my friend. When you go into the bars now, something like sigh issue. Name, your phone number, if you are wearing mask, if you have symptom. Now two weeks later after that, I got a call from government saying there has been outbreak in Itaewon.
Ch I was so happy free this time. But I had to cancel everything for the weekend because you got waited result came out.
Ili Why did you do twice?
Jo So the first time I had it, I had like weird feeling in my lungs. It hurt. Whenever I down, this must be something I have never felt. This must be corona. And I had a fever. So I went to Mapo district office, I went there, I walked in, I got tested. It was such an easy experience, I should share it with my American friends and show how cool the test is.
Jo So I got tested and within 24 hours I got my result back. But came with negative. But my lungs were hurt. So I went one of the best hospital which is Yeonsei hospital, and I got tested again. I got negative. The both were great.
Jo In America there is actually kind of new word, covidiot. Basically the people who aren’t managing covid not doing a good job of keeping them safe.
Ili That’s basically you.
Ch I learned my lesson, I went out to get tested, I paid money for my test unlike some people. Not practicing social distance. I learned my lesson, I haven’t been out since that time. Please guys stay home and enjoy play station, eat, order delivery. Come on.
Jo He is improved, no more covidiot, congratulation.
Ch I think one thing that’s really interesting, Korea receives mixed feedback from overseas kind of arguable results about the fact tracking of people who get corona. Somebody gets it, immediate family, people in the building, everyone gets order to get tested.
Ch That’s something really helped with the control, but in other counties, because of sudden privacy laws, you are not able to get the information, where people go. I think that’s the most interesting part.
Ili Conveying the information to the people.
Ili In Korea social responsibility, people know that it actually for their best. And everyone uses that. Masks, hand sanitizers. that’s the basic and crucial components for the whole battle.
Ch It’s kind of tide and washing culture as well. I think it’s great education campaign in Korea, like wash your hands 30 seconds and next step is the introduction of hand sanitizers. Such a natural progression of people play along.
Ili They make the announcement in subway stations, in the buses, everywhere you go literally. You can hear that you have to wash your hands more than 30 seconds. You see all those pictures how you need to wash your hands, place masks correctly on the face. So yes, that was huge campaign the government did.
Ili And South Korea as far as I know was one of the first ones to implement smart phone application to track.
Ili Actually people who are coming into the country, right now as far as I know, everyone who enters South Korea needs to download a app, they are tracking you in real time. Where are you in now, what are you doing right now.
Ili That definitely helps to control and narrow the possible ways of spreading of the virus.
Jo We can see where people who have corona have been. So you know what to avoid. Initially there were a few developers took the data out of map. I downloaded it. So interesting that I can know “Don’t go here, if you want to go here, go this way instead.”
Jo Me and lots of people could have gone and definitely got sick. Not just preventing it, but also even after people got and helping people get that information and be aware what’s going on.
Ch Back in April when Korean was actually doing the election which was the first time during the pandemic, I was on the streets taking a video for my youtube, I saw the people campaigning like big groups of people on trucks saying vote for me. That’s the kind of shocking for me.
Jo Yes, I saw that as well. I actually graduated political science. Korea University.
Ch Seoul National University.
Jo Oh, no. Social distancing. No.
Jo We study political science. When I saw them, I wondered how corona affects the election. Better for rulling party, better for opposition. It was like totally new kind of political situation. Really interesting.
Ili Well I did a vote.
Ili Because I’m a citizen. So I have voted right. That was not my first vote. I did presidential vote back into 2017. local election back into 2018. Everything started at the entrance. So people were there and they check your temperature first.
Ili Then you went inside and sanitize your hands, they hand you the plastic gloves, like you don’t touch anything. Absolutely anything. Then you line up for the a person to checks your ID and of course you have to keep social distancing, we had all the marks on the floor to stay away from each other like 1 meter half of 2 meters.
Ili Then you get the ballot, then you vote, cast the ballot.
Ili It was interesting and was great, great example of how you do need to organize a huge crowds of people.
Ili That was amazing. As far as I know, South Korea was the only one who did election during this pandemic.
Ili Lots of countries have postponed it because of the pandemic. But South Korea did it.
Ili There is a very interesting word in Korea that has been rise recently, during this pandemic. It’s Deokbune.
Ili this word has been used a lot recently because of the work has been done by government, all the hard work has been done by the doctors and nurses.
Ili All the medical staffs here in South Korea.
Ili There is a gesture that people use and post on their social media site to express their gratitude to medical staff here in Korea.
Ili I guess we should do that too to express our gratitude for this country doing such a great job.
Ili When doing this. You have to actually, you have to pronounce Deokbune.
Ch Deokbune campaign!
Ili Deokbune challenge!
Jo Medical staff Deokbune!
All All thanks to you.