The coronavirus has spread drastically throughout the whole world. Europe is now the epicenter of the pandemic. Cases continue to rise in Italy and countries like France, Germany and many more have resorted to lockdown and closed borders.

Amid these difficult times, South Korea has seen a positive trend. The country has managed to greatly slow its epidemic and this has been done without locking down the entire country or taking some of the other authoritarian measures that helped control the epidemic in China. “South Korea is a democratic republic, we feel a lockdown is not a reasonable choice,” says Kim Woo-Joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University, South Korea’s success may be an inspiration for other countries, however, the country is still braced for a resurgence.

Behind South Korea’s success has so far been the most well-organized and expansive testing program in the world and the extensive efforts to isolate infected people and trace and quarantine their contacts. More than 270.000 people have been tested in South Korea – this amounts to more than 5200 tests per million inhabitants. Data from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 74 tests per 1 million inhabitants have so far been carried out in the United States.

“Diagnostic capacity at scale is key to epidemic control,” says Raina Macintyre, an emerging infectious disease scholar at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Furthermore, she says “contact tracing is also very influential in epidemic control, as is case isolation.”

The national testing capacity has reached 15,000 tests a day. Nationwide, there are 43 drive-through testing stations and this concept has been copied in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. In addition, the Ministry of the interior rolled out a smartphone app that can track the quarantined and collect data on symptoms.

According to Chun Byung-Chul, an epidemiologist at Korea University, scientists are eager to see more epidemiological data. Furthermore, Kim says medical doctors are planning to share details of the clinical features of COVID-19 cases. “We hope our experience will help other countries control this COVID-9 outbreak,” she says.