South Korea's increase in coronavirus infections appears to be stabilizing, as much as the outbreak is far from over. Central to S. Korea's response was a rapid scale-up of testing — which was under way weeks before the number of infections began spiking.
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New infections by date are in green — after a peak in late February, newly reported cases have been just over 100 a day for most of this week. 
It feels like a lifetime ago, but in mid-February, South Korea's president told business leaders the virus' threat would be over "before long." Sound familiar?
The difference: the country was quietly gearing up its testing capacity for the event of widespread community outbreak.
The difference: the country was quietly gearing up its testing capacity for the event of widespread community outbreak.
In recent weeks, South Korea has averaged about 12,000 tests *each day*. That's about as many as the U.S., with 6x the population, had tested in total as of Thursday.
That capacity has meant South Korea was able to test people with no history of overseas travel, test all members of religious sect with 200,000+ people, conduct sweeping surveys of pneumonia patients, psych wards and call centers employees to catch the mildest of cases.
That early, wide detection has translated into a low mortality to known cases rate of less than 1% — compared to more than 3% elsewhere. Italy currently looks to be as high as 7%.
