Table 1. Summary of key policies and practices for COVID-19 epidemic control and responses, South Korea, January 1‒May 15, 2020 (8)*.

Pillars	Category	Description
Country-level coordination, planning, and monitoring	School closure	Postpone nationwide school opening after winter break.
	Workplace closure	Voluntary participation of employers to enable work from home and closure of nonessential business.
	Public events cancellation	Recommended cancelling religious services and large in-person gatherings.
	Public transport	All public transport systems remained open. The Seoul Metro system made it mandatory to wear a mask when riding the subway.
	Restriction of internal movement	Daegu City and Gyungbuk Province were designated as special management regions for COVID-19 on February 23, but no city-wide lockdown or stay-at-home restrictions were imposed. However, many persons voluntarily refrained from movement and gatherings.
	Promotion of personal protective measures	Promoted mask wearing in all public locations and frequent handwashing.
	National hotline for case reporting and testing	Opened a national hotline (#1339) for anyone who had fever, cough, or difficulty breathing to report and provided tests at screening stations.
Risk communication and community engagement	Rapid policy updates	The KCDC held daily briefings to provide status updates and policy guidance.
	Public disclosure of the trajectories of confirmed cases and alert system	The government publicly shared the trajectories of confirmed cases and sent alerts to those living in the areas where the cases were confirmed.
Surveillance, rapid-response teams, and case investigation	Contact tracing of direct contacts	Contact tracers called and traced all direct contacts of confirmed cases, where direct contacts were defined as anyone exposed to a confirmed COVID-19 case from 2 d (or 1 d since April 3) before symptom onset (or confirmed testing date for asymptomatic cases) to the last day of quarantine of the index case. For example, >99% of Shincheonji Church members were traced. A mobile app was launched on March 29 to trace the trajectories of confirmed cases in 10 min by linking the data from 28 related national institutions.
	Self-quarantine of contacts	All close contacts of confirmed case were required to self-quarantine for at least 2 weeks.
	Active monitoring and wide testing of potential contacts	Anyone who had overlapping trajectories with cases was alerted and offered free testing.
Points of entry, international travel, and transport	Self-quarantine and monitoring of in-bound travelers	At entry screening, travelers entering South Korea (both Korean and foreign nationals) were tested if they have fever or respiratory symptom. Korean nationals or foreign nationals on long-term visas were asked to self-quarantine since March 19. Foreign nationals on a short-term visa were quarantined at a temporary quarantine facility. A self-health check app has been used to monitor the health of in-bound travelers at least once daily for the 14 d following their arrival date.
	Travel history monitoring at hospitals	Tracing and alarm system (DUR/ITS) connected to the national insurance system filtered and screened persons who had an international travel history.
National laboratories	Rapid increase in testing capacity	Rapid set-up for RT-PCR for COVID-19 diagnosis in late January. RT-PCR became available in 46 laboratories by February 7, and 77 laboratories by February 20 with a testing capacity for 13,000 tests/day by the end of March.
Infection prevention and control	Designated hospitals for nonrespiratory medical visits only	From February 21, national safe hospitals were designated for medical visits related to nonrespiratory symptoms to separate these patients from potential COVID-19 patients.
	Preparation of negative pressure beds in hospitals	50 beds in NPIRs were added in Daegu on February 21 and additional 120 beds with NPIR on March 17.
	Preparation of personal protective equipment in hospitals	Healthcare workers were prioritized to receive public mask supply.
	Screening residents in long-term facilities (i.e., nursing homes)	Thorough investigation for unexplained pneumonia and COVID-19 testing were performed among the residents in 450 nursing homes on March 5.
Case management	Isolation of confirmed cases	Asymptomatic case-patients were isolated in designated CTCs starting on March 2. Symptomatic case-patients who had moderate and severe symptoms were isolated in hospitals. Anyone who violates the self-quarantine rule was to be charged a penalty of up to $10,000 or 1-y imprisonment.
	Triage of severe cases	Introduced a COVID-19 triage system based on disease severity (grades 1 to 4).
	Reallocation of hospital and ICU beds	Prioritization and reallocation of hospital and ICU beds for critically ill patients.
Operational support and logistics	Staff surge capacity and deployment at hospitals and airports	Special health workforce of ≈2,000, including 750 public health doctors, 172 specialists, 346 physicians, and 728 nurses were recruited and dispatched to hospitals in Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk Province to support COVID-19 case management as of March 9.
		Approximately 300 military doctors and nursing officers had supported screening and quarantine at airports and seaports until April 27.
	Face mask supply	The government rapidly increased the supply chain to produce 12 million disposable masks per day and set a mask rationing system to secure mask supplies and meet demands. Each person was permitted to buy 2 masks/week on an assigned weekday based on the last digit of the person’s birth year.
	Preparation of public health centers, hospital beds, and medical equipment	Total number of hospital beds with NIPRs was expanded from 198 to 1,077 beds by February 22.
	Screening stations	523 screening clinics were launched nationwide including drive-thru and walk-thru screening stations that had reversible negative/positive pressure booths.
Maintaining essential health services and systems	Triage and separation of non-COVID-19 patients	Daegu Dongsan Hospital and Daegu medical centers were designated as COVID-19 central hospitals where a massive surge developed on February 21; admitted patients with other disease were evacuated to other hospitals on February 23.
		National safe hospitals were designated where only nonrespiratory patients could seek medical care.

*COVID-19, coronavirus disease; CTC, community treatment center; DUR/ITS, drug utilization review/international traveler system; ICU, intensive care unit; KCDC, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; NPIRs, negative-pressure isolation rooms; RT-PCR, reverse transcription PCR.