ABSTRACT
This chapter emphasizes the importance of risk cognition and the utilization of information technologies by addressing South Korea’s COVID-19 responses. At the early stage of COVID-19, the Korean search for information through the internet and mass media showed a high level of risk cognition. We observe high compliance with the government’s COVID-19 policies, including wearing masks and social distancing policies. At the same time, the Korean government utilized information communication technologies for testing, tracking, and treating patients. These responses are possible because of the constructive learning from MERS in 2015. Among many factors influencing the effectiveness of the COVID-19 response, we conclude that the Korean government’s responses to COVID-19 could be characterized as (1) high-level risk cognition of multiple actors, (2) use of ICTs to transform risk cognition into action based on the learning from MERS, and (3) collaboration among the multiple actors. The utilization of ICTs strengthened through the successive intra-crisis learning, which resulted from interactions among the multiple actors. Keywords: MERS, Information Communication Technology, Learning, COVID-19
