Beyond Social Distancing To Fight Covid-19

In the global South, a military style lockdown, though inevitable given the circumstances, may reinforce prejudices

- Kalinga Tudor Silva

I agree with Eric Klinenberg’s recent submission to The New York Times that social distancing, advocated by health authorities worldwide, as a means of combating the spread of the coronavirus, can only be a part of firefighting. The rapid worldwide spread of COVID-19 has a lot to do with the fallout of globalisation, including the travel industry, tourism and the neoliberal attack on universal health care. Moreover, unfettered promotion of social distancing can reinforce existing social prejudices driven by different forms of social exclusion.

The Korea example

In illustrating how social distancing actually works in the periphery, I will draw from a few examples from corona-affected countries. The COVID-19 epidemic in South Korea started with the controversial Shincheonji Church of Jesus with a personality cult centred around 88-year-old Lee Man-hee, identified as a messianic saviour. This cult facilitated the transmission of the disease from Wuhan to South Korea because of frequent travel among its followers. Consequently, more than half of all COVID-19 patients at the onset of the epidemic belonged to this religious movement, which accounted for less than 1% of the Korean population.