Korea’s Response to COVID-19: A Lesson to be Learned ♥ ★ ✚

South Korea has proven itself as a model in its response to COVID-19. As a site of early spread before the pandemic reached global proportions, Korea quickly put in place systematic measures for effectively containing the virus such as: manufacturing and disseminating test kits, creating convenient testing sites for the general population, and implementing an effective contact tracing network. Despite the emergence of new clusters linked to clubs in Seoul’s Itaewon-dong district, daily confirmed cases remain relatively low. After a lengthy period of state-imposed social distancing, schools, shops and even baseball stadiums have begun to reopen under safer conditions.

In order to discuss and answer questions on how South Korea was able to establish itself quickly as a leader in its response to COVID-19, the Center for Critical Korean Studies is hosting this unique panel bringing together perspectives from governmental, scientific and business communities.

I hope to see you there virtually,

Joseph Jonghyun Jeon
Director, UCI Center for Critical Korean Studies

Speakers

Insang Hwang, deputy consul general, Republic of Korea

Insang Hwang has been at the Korean Consulate General in Los Angeles since August 2017. Before, he served as a counselor at the Korean Mission to the European Union in Brussels and as a senior consul at the Korean Consulate General to Shanghai. Hwang has participated in negotiating trade agreements like the KORUS-FTA, Korea-EU FTA, and Korea-China FTA.

Helen Cha Roberts, president, Seegene Technologies

Dr. Helen Cha Roberts is president of Seegene Technologies, the U.S. subsidiary of Seegene Inc., the global leader in COVID-19 molecular testing, having provided over 10M tests to over 60 countries to date. Seegene’s Allplex 2019-nCoV test is responsible for the vast majority of the testing performed in countries around the world.

Sunmin Lee, professor of epidemiology, UCI School of Medicine

Dr. Sunmin Lee, professor of epidemiology, is co-leader of the Cancer Control Program in the UCI Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Lee is a social epidemiologist whose main research interest is in reducing health disparities among racial/ethnic minority populations, especially among Asian Americans.

Moderator

Tyrus Miller, dean, UCI School of Humanities

Tyrus Miller is an internationally recognized scholar of 20th-century art, literature and culture, with a specialization in the innovative modernist and avant-garde literary and artistic movements of Europe and the United States.

Co-sponsored by the UCI Humanities Center, Department of East Asian Studies, and Center for Asian Studies.