Smart City for Pandemic Control

3T or “Trace, Test and Treat” is the principle that WHO uses for pandemic control. Sonn and Lee (2020), explained how Smart City came in handy, especially, to tackle the first part of the 3Ts, Trace. Learning from previous pandemics that the country faces, such as MERS and SARS, South Korea imposes the law for better pandemic control next time the outbreak occurs. When the Ministry of Health and Welfare declares a pandemic, South Korea's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention can request data of the citizen via the police to be tracked and traced. When COVID-19 outbreak started, the South Korean government utilized data from transportation cards, credit cards and data from mobile network providers to contain the spread of the disease. 

With this intervention from the government of South Korea, they successfully control the virus without a complete lockdown. This intervention also provides citizens peace of mind since fake news and panic buying were also prevented from happening, as information and visualisation of the virus is clearly communicated through various media and information outlets. Sonn and Lee (2020) argued that this can not happen if government agencies and private companies did not work together through the Smart City initiatives. Further, the experience in South Korea showed that the privacy does not have to be violated as this shows to the public how the data can be used wisely by the government in the time of emergency and public health crisis. 

Reference: 

Sonn, J. W., Kang, M., & Choi, Y. (2020). Smart city technologies for pandemic control without lockdown. 

Sonn, J. W., & Lee, J. K. (2020). The smart city as time-space cartographer in COVID-19 control: the South Korean strategy and democratic control of surveillance technology. Eurasian Geography and Economics, 61(4-5), 482-492.

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