South Korea took rapid, intrusive measures against Covid-19 – and they worked | Alexis Dudden and Andrew Marks
The country acted fast when the virus began to spread. Strict quarantine measures and testing have helped to curb it
South Koreans are famously nonchalant about North Korean nuclear weapons. Bewilderingly to the rest of us, they “keep calm and carry on” whenever Pyongyang threatens to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire”. The South Korean approach to Covid-19 could not have been more different.
On 16 January, the South Korean biotech executive Chun Jong-yoon grasped the reality unfolding in China and directed his lab to work to stem the virus’s inevitable spread; within days, his team developed detection kits now in high demand around the world.