As soon as South Korea confirmed its first case of Covid-19 on 20 January 2020, the government set in motion a disease control protocol that was to become the envy of other developed nations. It built high-capacity screening facilities and worked with private companies to ensure a steady supply of test kits. The government isolated infected residents and traced their contacts with an army of trained officers, many of them newly recruited. It built temporary hospitals and hired thousands of health workers to staff them, and centralised procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE).
