[joe_the_user]

"I think it’s too early to judge success."

Uh really?

South Korea suppressed an epidemic and strengthened the tools they had for suppressing epidemics, maintaining economic strength and social cohesion.

How are they not best position in the stage of managing the epidemic (the appropriate term used by the ggp).

Oh, I know one really bad answer people are ready with - they didn't let the virus burn through their population to acquire herd immunity. The degree to which any other approach is going to leave a society ready to deal with new waves of this seems really, really low. Certainly, current US events aren't preparing for any future crisis.

[randomsearch]

Well, for one thing, people were saying the same about Singapore, but the number of cases there has grown exponentially. A pandemic isn't over in a few months, we have to look at it over years.

For example: behavioural scientists tell us that people will only stand one major lockdown; using that lockdown early to keep deaths to a minimum initially may not be the best strategy. So thinking about the long-term is essential.

Not saying you're wrong that South Korea has a good track record to this point. I am saying you're wrong to extrapolate that out to the likely arrival of a vaccine programme in 2021.