Comparing disease outcomes at all is futile because they are incredibly sensitive to initial conditions. One sick person travelling in January made all the difference.
The serious outbreaks in the US and South Korea began at the same time. Arguably, South Korea’s circumstances were worse because there’s was driven by a secretive cult that hid their illness and misled contract tracers. Look at where both countries are today.
An immediate, thorough response makes all the difference.
Also just not having any initial sick people and closing the airports works great.
Your "at the same time" statement is off by a few days and off by a few days makes a huge difference in outbreak severity. That's why you need to keep in mind that small numbers of infected people and seemingly short time intervals change the result radically.
Do you honestly believe the difference between South Korea and the US’ outcomes is those few days? The difference in response on any dimension between the two countries, from their testing to contract tracing to on-demand hospital expansions is so staggering as to make this claim absurd.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about with airports. South Korea has had less incoming travel restrictions than the US.
I was referring to New Zealand. I don't think comparing SK to USA is nonsense but I do think comparing Sweden to China or New Zealand to USA is complete nonsense. If anyone feels compelled to do so they need to realize they are cherry-picking and compare NZ to Utah instead.
Phylogenetic analysis showed that in most countries there were multiple seeding events before the infections were discovered. In short, it wasn't just one sick person.
