"If you don't restructure experiences while the memory is still alive, you will repeat the same mistakes in the next crisis."
Six years after the COVID-19 pandemic. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency is shifting the center of gravity in infectious disease crisis response. The plan is to move from focusing solely on "response" to a whole-of-cycle system that ties preparedness–response–recovery into a single timeline. With the recovery phase wrapping up and on-the-ground memory and organizational tension quickly fading, the agency sees now as effectively the last golden time to prepare for the next pandemic.
Im Seung-kwan, Administrator of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said at a press briefing in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, on the 19th, "We overcame COVID-19 through the unified efforts of the public, but our response at the time clearly mixed in impromptu judgments and stopgaps." Im noted that given the rise in vulnerable populations due to aging, constrained fiscal conditions, and changes in the science and technology environment including artificial intelligence (AI), "the methods of the past are no longer sustainable."
To that end, the agency launched an infectious disease crisis response task force (TF) two months ago and began overhauling the entire response system.
The agency plans to enhance the response system by largely dividing infectious disease crises into two categories. Diseases like MERS and Ebola, which are highly virulent but have limited transmissibility, are classified as "limited transmission." For this type, the goal is containment and eradication within months at the latest, with short-term, concentrated deployment of advanced isolation treatment facilities and specialized medical personnel.
By contrast, diseases like H1N1 or COVID-19, which are highly transmissible but relatively less lethal, are classified as "pandemic type." In this case, the goal is not early termination but to manage risk and move society into the recovery phase.
Im said, "The essence of pandemic response is to buy time to determine the nature of the threat while controlling risk, then lower that risk with vaccines, treatments, and diagnostic tools, and reopen society in stages," adding, "This process must operate sequentially along a timeline."
The role of the agency will also change. Rather than simply an institution that executes quarantine guidelines, it plans to function as a hub that collects and analyzes infectious disease information and connects the results to medical response and social policy.
Infectious disease specialty hospitals will serve as key hubs for the whole-of-cycle response. For limited transmission diseases, they will handle isolation of severe patients and specialized treatment; for pandemic-type diseases, they will identify the risk's nature while performing education and training functions for vaccine and treatment development and expansion of the medical system. Six such hospitals will open in phases from next year through 2030.
Messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccine development will also accelerate. The agency has set a goal of completing marketing authorization for a domestically developed COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine by 2028 and internalizing the vaccine platform technology in Korea. The current candidate has entered phase 1 clinical trials.
Im said, "Once the platform is complete, if a new pandemic is declared in the future, we will have a response system capable of developing a vaccine within 200 days."
The decision-making structure will also be improved. Next year, the agency will take over emergency treatment beds previously under the Ministry of Health and Welfare to increase efficiency in bed allocation.
The trial and error seen during the early COVID-19 period—such as disclosing confirmed patients' travel paths and imposing stringent social distancing—will serve as lessons. Going forward, the agency will decide on social measures such as distancing by considering socio-economic impacts, not just simple case counts, and will specify human rights protection principles in public health and social response manuals.
Im said, "In the early phase, before the nature of the risk is known, controlling policies may be unavoidable, but in the mid-phase, the intensity and methods of restrictions must be adjusted based on scientific evidence, and in the recovery phase, a principle of minimal intervention premised on normalizing society must operate," adding, "Designing in advance the measures the state can take and the level the public must endure at each response stage is the core of a whole-of-cycle response."
Building a fiscal base to support the whole-of-cycle response is a challenge. Im said, "Because speed is crucial in infectious disease response, the usual way of injecting state finances has limitations," adding, "It is the agency's hope to establish an 'infectious disease national public health crisis response fund.'"
Specifically, Im mentioned reviving the Global Disease Eradication Fund previously levied on outbound travelers and setting aside part of it for an infectious disease crisis response fund. The fund had added 1,000 won per person to international airline tickets for disease prevention and eradication in developing countries, but it was abolished starting in 2025.
Im said, "Rather than restoring the fund and spending 100% on official development assistance (ODA), one alternative could be to reserve about 50% for domestic infectious disease crisis response and deploy it immediately in times of crisis."
Im concluded by rating Korea's COVID-19 response as "K-quarantine scored 90 points," while adding, "We cannot rest on that score," and emphasizing, "The reason for the state's existence is to protect even one more citizen from infectious diseases."
The agency plans to gather expert and public feedback and announce the final plan to enhance the infectious disease crisis response system in Jul.