This article claims that “lockdown” is the best way to stop the virus, then says that South Korea and China are the examples to follow. It claims that Korea has made a lockdown.

South Korea has, at no point, made anything close to the country-wide “lockdown” we’re seeing in parts of Europe.

Korea’s reaction is amongst the most successful in the world, and involves contact tracing and isolation of the sick. When they have “locked down” anything, it’s been extremely small scale, on the order of a building or block. Similarly, Taiwan has had an immensely successful response, without resorting to these kinds of extreme measures.

This article is designed to scare, not to inform.

There are basically two paths: act swiftly and decisively at the very beginning. Immediately close your borders. Find the infected and contact trace them. Dragnet test where necessary. Haul off the sick to quarantine locations run by the government. etc. Then you don't need to lock down the entire country.

Path 2 is you fuck it up and Covid-19 is running rampant through your entire population. Of course at this point closing borders and contact tracing is 100% pointless. It's in this environment where lockdown is the only way you can accomplish anything.

This is a false dichotomy. There is no particular reason to believe that China’s approach is the only correct path, other than it’s the one they used.

China was certainly not an example of the first. They tried to cover up its existence in the beginning! The best examples are Japan and Singapore.