[Reporter: Terrence McKenna] To see how well South Korea is handling this outbreak
have a look at the lineups of passengers arriving at Incheon Airport near Seoul.
They have to pass through multiple levels of temperature monitoring
and fever checks.
There are testing facilities right in the airport.
Passengers are told to self isolate for 14 days.
They are required to download a cell phone app
to report any symptoms to health authorities
in which case they will be closely monitored.
This is just the first line of defense in a massive system to track the virus.
And it seems to be working.
If you compare the progression of infections in countries like Italy, Spain
the United States and Canada
Korea was much more successful in containing the spread of the disease.
And now has far fewer deaths per million of residents than most infected countries.
It didn't start out so well.
Back in February, in a religious sect called the Shincheonji, Church of Jesus
in the southern city of Daegu
a woman now called patient 31 ignored symptoms of COVID-19
and proceeded to attend large religious ceremonies.
By the time she was diagnosed
this super spreader had infected over five thousand people.
Then the secretive church refused to cooperate with medical investigations.
Yeong Seon Kim is a journalist with KBS, the Korean public broadcaster.
This church keeps their followers identity secret.
And initially they were reluctant to hand over the list of their followers to the authority.
That's why you know the Korean people were so mad at this church.
[Reporter] Eventually the church leader prostrated himself before an angry public
and apologized profusely.
The Korean containment system swung into action to slow the outbreak.
Once it has established that someone has a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19
cell phone and credit card data is used to chart everywhere that person has been lately.
And every other person they have come close to.
The contacts of those people can also be traced almost instantly
giving a much better idea who requires immediate testing.
Hoon Sang-Leei is a professor of global health security at Yonsei University in Seoul.
[Reporter] People also receive cell phone alerts of contacts
with infected patients and locations in their neighborhood.
Victoria Kim covers South Korea for the Los Angeles Times.
So if there's been a COVID patient in my vicinity I will get an emergency push alert on my phone
that'll tell me they were at this restaurant between the hours of 7:30 and 8:30 last night
or like this particular subway stop at these hours.
[Reporter] This sort of thing will raise privacy and civil rights concerns around the world
but the vast majority of Koreans seem to accept it.
The government keeps the balance between protecting public safety
and protecting private information basically.
So the information made to public does not include any private information that
allow people to identify whose the information they are receiving.
So the it only says male or female and their age.
That's all so you cannot tell who he is he or she is actually.
And second the people understand extraordinary measures are necessary
during extraordinary times.
[Reporter] Drive-in testing facilities have been set up all over the country
and are a godsend for families who can't bring in babysitters or spend hours in the hospital.
Robert Kelly is an American professor at Busan University who became famous a few years ago
when a BBC interview with him was interrupted by his children
and then his wife chasing them and the viral video of it went around the world .
He loves Korea's drive-in testing facilities.
Taking my kids to a hospital for two or three hours, give me a break, right.
I mean forget it, they're gonna be climbing the walls and punching each other
and you're gonna tear stuff off the walls, I don't know.
You literally just sort of pull up into like a parking lot somewhere of a government building
or a school or something like that and you'd wait your turn.
And you don't even have to get out of the car and the guy comes up
and they swab your nose with your throat
and then they they take the biological stuff and go and they do the test
and they come back in about 15 or 20 minutes.
Professor Kelly is impressed by the Korean public cooperation
and compliance with outbreak guidelines.
Korea is very centralized and it's very presidentialized.
Which means once the presidential office decided that this was a big deal
and and moved against it
the Korean state was able to swing into action pretty rapidly.
The level of social compliance
with government recommendations has been very very high.
[Reporter] Unlike many other countries there seems to be no huge pressure in Korea
to quickly reopen the schools.
Bars and restaurants were never closed.
South Korea has shown the world that very extensive testing
and contact tracing are the most important weapons against this pandemic.
Lessons that few Western countries seem to have taken to heart.
Terrence Mckenna, CBC News, Toronto.