December7, 202055JEONG: AHN YOUNG-JOON/AP PHOTO. COOPER: MINDY TUCKER. LACALLE POU: FOCOUY/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
○ Uruguay has the lowest Covid-19
infection and mortality rates in South
America despite sharing borders with
pandemic hot spots Argentina and Brazil.Lacalle Pou, the son of a former president and heir to one
of Uruguay’s oldest political dynasties, might have assumed
he’d get a honeymoon period after taking office on March 1.
But within two weeks of starting, his government detected
the first Covid-19 cases in the country of 3.5 million people,
and he declared a national emergency. His decision to
quickly close borders and institute widespread testing and
contact tracing is credited with preventing a major outbreak.
Rather than impose a lockdown, Lacalle Pou appealed to
Uruguayans’ “responsible exercise of liberty,” as he calls
his promotion of voluntary social distancing and hygiene.
Economists expect Uruguay will suffer its deepest
recession in two decades, with gross domestic product
contracting 4% in 2020. But Latin America’s economy
could shrink 7%. Investors have taken note, with Uruguay’s
bonds returning more than 14% year-to-date through mid-
November compared with -0.93% for the region. Even so,
Lacalle Pou faces the challenge of containing Covid-19 and
reviving an economy that’s had slow growth. —Ken Parks○ SouthKorea’sturnaroundsawit gofrom
havingtheworld’ssecond-worstCovid-19
outbreakin Februarytoa percapitacase
countthat’sabout1/60thofthenumberin
theU.S.SouthKoreaisraucouslydemocraticandrelativelylarge,
witha populationnotmuchsmallerthanItaly’sanda capital
that’sbiggeranddenserthanNewYorkCity.Soitshandling
ofthecoronavirusmayholdsomelessonsfortheWestern
democraciesthathavethusfarfailedtocontrolit.
WithoutJeong,SouthKoreamightnotbewhereit is
now.InlateFebruaryanoutbreakwasdiscoveredamong
followersofShincheonji,a religiousgroupthathadjustheld
packedservicesinthecityofDaegu.Itsadherentssubse-
quentlyspreadallover,andthechurchrefusedtohandover
theirnames.ButJeongpersuadedShincheonjitodisclose
itsmembers’identities,allowingheragencytobegintesting
more than 200,000 of them. She then rolled out one of the
most effective contact- tracing regimes in the world. By late
March the number of new infections in South Korea was at
100 per day, compared with more than 900 in late February.
Daily life has been normal for most of the year, all without a
single day of lockdown. —Peter Pae○ Her TikTok video
How to Medical, which
spoofed President Trump’s
suggestion that ultraviolet
light and disinfectant
injections could cure
Covid-19, drew 25 million
views on social media.Before this year, Cooper was known
for her office humor. She wrote cartoon
books titled 100 Tricks to Appear Smart
in Meetings and How to Be Successful
Without Hurting Men’s Feelings. In April,
wearing a blue blazer, she lip-synced
Trump addressing medical professionals
at a news conference: “We hit the bodywith a tremendous—whether it’s ultraviolet
or just very powerful light—and I think you
said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re
gonna test it,” she began. Then she
shared the video on Instagram, Twitter,
and YouTube. Soon Cooper—eyes wide,
brow furrowed, hair unkempt—was add-
ing more under-a- minute lip syncs with
titles such as How to Mask and How to
Immigration Policy, creating a new kind
of political commentary by highlight-
ing Trump’s logorrhea through her facial
expressions. The videos force audiences
to confront whether they would tolerate
anyone else saying what he says, and
they double as cultural commentary, with
Cooper making the subtle point that a
Black woman could never get away with
Trumpian rhetoric. Now Cooper is try-
ing to prove that she has range. Her first
comedy sketch show, Everything’s Fine,
hit Netflix in late October. —Sarah FrierSARAH
COOPER
COMEDIAN
LUIS
LACALLE
POU
PRESIDENT,
URUGUAY
JEONG
EUN
KYEONG
COMMISSIONER,
KOREA DISEASE
CONTROLAND PREVENTION
AGENCYI Jeong likes writing short stories, some of which have beenpublished in Korean literary journals