To restart the economy, Trump should pay attention to the South Korea model | Trudy Rubin

Medical staff wearing protective suits check documents as they wait for people with suspected symptoms of the new coronavirus at a testing facility in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. The coronavirus epidemic shifted increasingly westward toward the Middle East, Europe, and the United States on Tuesday, with governments taking emergency steps to ease shortages of masks and other supplies for front-line doctors and nurses.Read moreAhn Young-joon / AP

Published March 24, 2020, 4:08 p.m. ET

President Donald Trump has made clear that he’s itching to lift the coronavirus restrictions that have locked down the economy. And to do it by Easter.

His angst is understandable, and not just because the stock market crash endangers his election prospects. The collapsing economy and soaring unemployment are terrifying even to those lucky enough to still be receiving salaries.

As New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this week: “We have to start to plan the pivot back to economic functionality. You can’t stop the economy forever.”

So where to look for a road map back to a working economic system without fueling an even greater virus outbreak? The obvious answer is South Korea — the one sizable democracy that has flattened the coronavirus curve without shutting down its economy or resorting to Chinese-style lockdowns.

Yet the two keys to Seoul’s success are things the White House is still way behind the curve on: : massive testing and ensuring that the health system gets everything it needs.

“Testing is central,” South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told the BBC, “because it leads to early detection, minimizes further spread, and it quickly treats those found with the virus.” Testing can reveal those with mild or no symptoms who are carriers and require them to self-quarantine, thus preventing spread.

South Korean officials, chastened by the country’s bad experience in 2015 with the MERS virus, pressed companies to develop test kits in late January, as soon as China released the genetic code of the virus. The tests were distributed by the hundreds of thousands by early February. Government officials opened hundreds of testing centers, including drive-thru stations and walk-in centers, where health workers administered throat swabs.

As for health workers who test, the South Korean government ensured that they had everything they needed. “The government intervened to prevent profiteering and asked companies to supply equipment at a certain price,” said economist Suchan Chae, a professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (and UPenn PhD). “Hospitals and medical providers have no problem getting masks.”

Since the Seoul government moved quickly on containing the disease, “they did not require companies to shut down,” Chae told me by phone from Seoul. “Many big companies switched to remote work, and many small companies decreased activities because of the slowdown, but they were not forced to do so.”

Restaurants could stay open, but asked customers to sit at a safe distance, Chae added as he headed to his institute’s cafeteria, where diners sit side by side, avoiding face-to-face contact.

Now that new cases have sharply declined, South Korea’s economy can rev back up while the country keeps testing to avoid a resurgence. Schools are supposed to reopen April 6.

“If Korea did it, surely the United States, with all its resources, can find the right strategy,” Chae suggested. You would think so — until you look at Trump’s response so far.

After banning travelers from China on Jan. 31, Trump downplayed the virus and wasted crucial weeks when he could have facilitated testing.

Playing catch-up, the administration claimed Tuesday that the U.S. has now tested more than 300,000 people over the last eight days, nearly equal to the total number done by South Korea. Even if that figure is accurate (and I’m waiting for the data), it’s still six times less per capita than the Koreans have done. Moreover, with medical workers short on masks, gowns, swabs and lab components, testing becomes tougher.

Inexplicably, the president steadfastly refuses to use the Defense Production Act to mobilize U.S. companies to produce what is needed, telling governors to fend for themselves. He touts vague voluntary pledges by companies while first responders go without protection.

Meantime, Cuomo — whose fact-filled briefings stand in stark comparison to Trump’s chaotic stage shows — has has to scour the world for health equipment. “I need 30,000 ventilators,” Cuomo told CNN, “and FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] is sending 400.”

So much for the South Korean model.

Yet, if we want younger people to return to the workforce, along with the healthy and those who have recovered, and to do it without sparking future outbreaks, we need to test massively across the country. And we need well-equipped health workers and easier procedures.

“We have got to double down and triple down on testing,” says Democratic Rep. Max Rose, from hard-hit New York City. “We have to ID nonsymptomatic carriers. That’s the only way we’ll be able to [revive] this economy.”

Ironically, the president called South Korean President Moon Jae-in this week to inquire about buying medical equipment. Would that he had asked advice about the South Korean model — which would require him to enable states and cities to test big, right now.