Myongji Hospital held webinars on Wednesday and Thursday to hand over Korea’s know-how in dealing with new coronavirus to government employees and experts all over the world, at the request of the United Nations.
Lee Wang-jun, chairman of the Myongji Hospital, hosted the webinars, explaining Korea’s experiences concerning COVID-19. Lee made presentations at the conference, participated in by 1,359 government officials and other specialists from 161 countries.
Lee, who also heads the working group of the Korean Hospital Association's new coronavirus emergency response headquarters, summarized the nation's COVID-19 progress and response in four strategies during his presentation titled "Trace test treating COVID-19 in Korea. A webinar, a combination of web and seminar, allows the presenters and participants to communicate via online seminar.
He characterized Korea's efforts to cope with COVID-19 as transparency and information disclosure, paralleled use of containment and mitigation policy, efficient and creative patient classification and treatment system (three-step classification and treatment, including temporary healthcare center), broad, selective screening and rapid tracking (composed of the development process, sample collection, analytical capacity).
Lee also introduced Myongji Hospital's preemptive responses to the COVID-19, one of the best examples in Korea, and their results as well.
The U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) posted the contents of Lee's presentation under the title of “How South Korea is suppressing COVID-19” on its website to share it with disaster officials, experts, and scholars around the world.
Aside from Chairman Lee, several professors at the hospital took part in the webinar to have heated question-and-answer sessions with experts throughout the world. Among other participants were Professors Lee Ki-deok and Kang Yu-min of the Department of Infectious Disease who are treating coronavirus patients at the hospital, as well as Professors Lim Jae-kyun and Lee Baek-seung, who conducted detection tests and wrote papers on treatment.
"The webinar was hastily organized at the U.N.'s request. We could feel keen attention in Korea's COVID-19 patient treatment and response strategy shown by many countries,” Chairman Lee said. “I believe the event has provided a meaningful opportunity for other countries to establish their COVID-19 treatment systems and response strategies."