Smart city technologies for pandemic control without lockdown

摘要

The return of COVID-19 outbreaks in Singapore in mid-April shows that successful control at one point in time does not guarantee an end to the pandemic. However, at least at the point of this editorial's writing (9 May 2020), South Korea has shown remarkable success. The U.S. and UK have had 238 and 460 deaths per million, respectively and even Germany, the least hit in Western Europe, has had 90. In contrast, South Korea's death count per million remains at 5. This gap is likely to grow further because South Korea experienced its peak nearly two months ago while the European and North American countries just passed or are still heading toward their peaks. More remarkable is that South Korea has achieved this feat without lockdown.