South Korea and Italy offer two bookends of how a country can tackle the coronavirus. Their divergent experiences hold urgent lessons for the U.S. and other democracies where the pandemic is at an earlier stage. Seoul, accepting the illness had arrived, kept its borders open and aggressively tracked down the infected using data and extensive tests. Rome, after escalating attempts to reduce travel and social interactions, quarantined the whole country, while only screening people once they had shown symptoms.

Source: Wall Street Journal March 13, 2020 14:37 UTC