Health of underlying population, size of country, and virus experience all tailwinds for South Korea that the US doesn’t have; that said, we didn’t have to match South Korea’s success to do a lot better than we did / have done.
Testing, PPE, ventilators, locking down. All of these were debacles in their own way. And three effective tests ready in adequate numbers, sufficient quantity of masks, locking down earlier and more effectively could have really saved a lot of lives here (and avoided the risk of a run on ventilators completely).
I can’t say “well if it weren’t for our size, we have had this under control like SK” when in late-February the President was calling coronavirus a hoax perpetrated by the media that was less of a concern than the flu. I see little evidence our country was in the right headspace to take the fight to the virus like SK and others did