The book 'There's no such thing as K-Quarantine', written by Prof.Howard Lee, Jung-Hyun Won, YeSol Hong and 13 others, was selected in the liberal arts section of the Sejong Cultural Book Program this year. The Sejong Cultural Book Program is organized by the Publication industry Promotion Agency of Korea. This program aims to promote domestic publishing activities and to build a knowledge-based society by selecting outstanding books among those published throughout the year. Books worth 8 million Korean won will be distributed to public libraries nationwide. In 2022, 550 books were selected from a total of 8,698 candidates. The book There's no such thing as K-quarantine was selected as an excellent book in the field of technology science. 

Three other MDs were also interviewed and the detailed report of Prof. Lee's interview can be found here. 

The Corona Fighters Live invited Prof. Howard Lee to go over the issues pertaining to the recent upswing of COVID-19 cases in Korea, in association with a book that he has just edited and published, entitled 'There is no such thing as K-Quarantine.' YeSol Hong and Jung-Hyun Won also contributed to the book as one of the co-authors.

In this talk, Prof. Lee shared a story as to why he came up with an idea of publishing a book that scientifically and systematically criticizes the flaws and defects of the K-Quranine, which has been praised by the Korean government. Prof. Lee disagreed, "The K-Qurantine is just a political propaganda. No reality is there." 

A full video can be watched at the following YouTube page.   

‘There's no such thing as K-Quarantine', coauthored by Prof. Howard Lee, Jung-Hyun Won, Yesol Hong and 13 others, was published on December 15, 2021. The book focuses on the problems, failures, and indignity of the K-Quarantine that are unlikely to be included in any government-published white paper. Prof. Lee, the editor and lead author of ‘There's no such thing as K-Quarantine', planned this book in a hope that the mistakes and failures associated with the groundless and unscientific K-Quarantine will not be repeated in the future when similar public health crises occur.

The book consists of four parts. Part one vividly describes how society overcome the adversities and difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Jung-Hyun Won, Yesol Hong, and Prof. Lee wrote a chapter in Part one that summarized what had happened during the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., 2020-2021) in South Korea and other countries (e.g., China, Japan, Israel), and reviewed how each country responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Part two presents the light and shadow of the K-Quarantine through the eyes and perspectives of experts in each field. In one of the chapters in Part two, Prof. Lee criticized the vaccine supply policy of the Korean government during the pandemic, which did not put much effort into securing a sufficient number of vaccine doses as early as possible, risking public health in South Korea.

Part three introduces the readers to the responses from other countries to the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by discussion how different they have been from the K-Quarantine. 

Part 4 summarizes a virtual forum discussion among the co-authors, which Yesol Hong, Jung-Hyun Won, and Prof. Lee organized. Yesol Hong, Jung-Hyun Won, and Prof. Lee prepared questions and agendas in advance, and Prof. Lee led the discussion.

In the preface, Prof. Lee commented, “Our future is not dark. We can do better next time by learning from the failure. I hope this book will may contribute to that transition. I dedicate this book to everyone who lost their precious lives due to COVID-19.”