Coronavirus in South Korea: How 'trace, test and treat' may be saving lives
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51836898
Role model
There is no shortage of testing kits in South Korea. Four companies have been given approval to make them. It means the country has the capacity to test 140,000 samples a week.
Prof Kwon believes the accuracy of South Korea's Covid-19 test is around 98%. The ability to test so many people has made the country a role model as others look to battle their own coronavirus outbreaks.
But there have been missteps too.
At least two patients died waiting for a hospital bed in Daegu, the worst affected city. The initial reaction was to quarantine everyone infected with the virus in a hospital bed, but now the doctors have learned to treat those with mild symptoms in residential centres and leave the clinical beds for those needing critical care.
"We can't quarantine and treat all patients. Those who have mild symptoms should stay home and get treated," Dr Kim Yeon-Jae, an infectious disease specialist from the Korea National Medical Centre told me.
"We should change our end goal strategy to lower death rates. So other countries like Italy, that see huge numbers in patients, should also change their strategies as well."
Wherever the virus hits in large numbers - makeshift test centres follow.
This week in Seoul, there was a mass infection at a call centre. Medics set up outside and quickly took swabs from hundreds of staff in the building.