Kim Hyun-bin began his journalism career at Arirang TV from 2012 to 2017, specializing in defense, foreign affairs and the economy. In 2018, he joined The Korea Times, covering society and business, and is currently responsible for embassy affairs.
Korea's innovative drive-through, walk-through testing methods highlighted amid COVID-19
A medical staff collects sample of a Seoul resident from a walk-through testing clinic set up at the Jamsil Sports Complex in Seoul in this April 3 photo. All Seoul residents entering the country from abroad are required to get tested for COVID-19 although there are no symptoms present. Korea Times photo by Bae Woo-han
By Kim Hyun-bin
This is the second in a five-part series on Korea's response to COVID-19, produced in collaboration with the Korea Foundation. -- ED.
By Kim Hyun-bin
The COVID-19 pandemic has swept through the world keeping international communities on the highest alert, while forcing them to scramble to find effective preventive measures in the hopes of stopping the spread of the deadly virus.
Amid the pandemic, Korea's preventive measures especially hogged the limelight on the international stage as they were considered some of the most effective to contain the outbreak.
The country was the world's first to introduce drive-through and walk-through test centers that have now been adopted by many other nations.
Drive-through testing allows patients to sit inside their car while medical staff in protective hazmat suits check for any fever, and take throat and nasal samples through the vehicle window. The driver is able to directly drive away after the brief test ― if cleared of possible COVID-19 symptoms.
Generally, a test-taker has to go through five steps at a drive-through center ― registration, examination, specimen collection, results and exit. The centers are capable of conducting 100 tests per day.
Motorists drive to a screening booth, where medical staff take their temperature with a contactless thermometer and at the specimen collection booth nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs are taken to collect respiratory tract specimens.
If the person is strongly suspected of having contracted COVID-19, he or she is referred to a designated hospital for further evaluation.
The test takes at most 10 minutes, which experts say cuts testing time by a third.
Officials say it is faster and safer to check for the virus at the drive-through centers rather than in conventional hospitals and health clinics.
Korea was one of the first countries to be impacted hard by the COVID-19 outbreak with the first case reported Jan. 20 and the number of new cases peaking Feb. 29 at more than 900 in 24 hours.
The outbreak was able to be quickly managed through swift nationwide testing and contact tracing initiatives, which have been deemed effective compared to nations avoiding implementing large-scale lockdowns and lacking testing measures, such as the United States.
Although the country is still fighting to prevent the spread of the virus, experts attribute the relatively low fatality rate to swift execution and broad availability of testing that enabled early identification of COVID-19 positive patients and swift quarantining or hospitalization.
Medical staff collect samples at a drive-through COVID-19 testing center at a sports complex in Wonju, Gangwon Province, in March. / Yonhap
Drive-through testing came to prominence after Kim Jin-yong, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Incheon Medical Center, and Kwon Ki-tae, director of Infection Control at Chilgok Kyungpook University Hospital, decided to begin the world's first such screening center.
The parties involved also co-published the paper, “Drive-Through Screening Center for COVID-19: a Safe and Efficient Screening System against Massive Community Outbreaks,” in the Journal of Korean Medical Science (JKMS), March 16.
While the drive-through testing method has proven to be highly effective, medical staff faced difficulties in securing large areas to set up test centers as well as providing space for the long line of vehicles with people waiting to be tested.
To address these limitations, on March 16 the government also initiated walk-through screening centers, which is a one-person screening booth that separates doctors and patients that reduces the risks of infection and allows seniors and patients without cars to easily get tests.
People who want a test walk into a phone booth-sized room with a medical staff member on the other side of a see-through barrier that has attached gloves allowing samples to be taken without direct physical contact.
Walk-through testing has proven much more effective and time efficient than screening clinics that were previously used to collect samples, which were typically set up in shipping containers or negative-pressure tents. These were considered ineffective as after collecting each sample the area needed to be disinfected, which took up to an hour ― longer than it took to collect the sample.
The implementation of walk-through testing is not only faster but also safer for medical staff as they needn't make direct physical contact with patients within the booth, reducing the risk of additional infections.
Alternatively, Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center had previously introduced a “Glove Wall” collection room at its screening center Feb. 10. Similar to an infant incubator a glass-walled box had holes for gloves, allowing patient specimens to be collected without direct contact.
This was equipped with a separate negative pressure device inside, and provided completely separate travel routes for medical staff and patients, reducing any chance of secondary infection risks.
As the patient and medical staff are separated, the latter do not have to wear heavy Level-D protective gear and are able to collect samples under air conditioning, while medical staff in tents and container centers had to endure the intense summer heat in their protective bio suits.
In addition to drive-through and walk-in testing, the government relayed information about new infection spikes in various regions and social distancing protocols through emergency text messages.
“We have to give a lot of credit to the government for its ability to install drive-through testing and treatment centers, swiftly finding confirmed COVID-19 patients, and preventing any further spread of the virus,” said Lee Sang-il, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Ulsan's College of Medicine.
Telemedicine smartphone applications also aided the efforts allowing the public to receive preliminary remote diagnoses.
The government also utilized phone and credit card use tracking, surveillance video and personal interviews to trace people who may have interacted with virus carriers.
The government is open to sharing its know-how from its continuous fight against the COVID-19 pandemic with the world, and is working to establish a disease-control program that could become an international standard in fighting deadly viruses.
“The country's COVID-19 countermeasures, have become a role model for many countries and they have asked us to share our know-how,” the Ministry of Science and ICT said. “We plan to release our casebooks to countries around the world through international organizations, Korean embassies abroad and overseas government officials.”
According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy, the administration has been pushing for the so-called “test-trace-treat” (3T) model to be recognized as the ideal method combat the pandemic and has proposed related regimes to the International Organization for Standardization.
The country aims to standardize a total of 18 disease-control programs providing preventive measures for all stages of fighting the spread of the virus, carrying out tests, drive-through and walk-through testing and the operation of quarantine centers.
In addition, the government is looking at setting global standards for mobile applications that track patients under self-quarantine.
Korea has been touted as one of the most successful countries in preventing the spread of COVID-19, without totally locking down the country.
With a population of 50 million, it has reported around 13,000 COVID-19 infections since the first case appeared, Jan. 20. Despite ups and downs in the infection rate, the country's daily new infection cases stands at around 60, which is far less than countries such as the U.S. and Brazil which have officially recorded more than 2 million and 1 million total infections, respectively.