[makomk]

Also, by current US and European standards South Korea is carrying out very few Covid-19 tests, which makes it hard to make a meaningful comparison of case numbers. Well over an order of magnitude less in per-capita terms. I believe they're still not routinely offering testing to people with mild potential symptoms unless they've had recent contact with a known case, and there's evidence that it's in increasingly widespread circulation outside of the network of cases known to contact tracing.

Plus, you've got to remember that disease outbreaks grows exponentially, and exponential growth always has low numbers at the start until it doesn't.