> How is it possible that SK has performed such an extensive testing

They made it an institutional priority. Other governments prioritized messaging and fiscal measures over medical action.

> Did SK developp its own technics and device for testing

Yes, but so did a number of other countries [1]. Seoul had no "secret sauce" [2]. Just institutional attention and competence.

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31987001?dopt=Abstract

As others have said, nothing magic other than focused attention.

South Korea and Singapore both were hit by the original SARS epidemic, and learned important lessons from it. They're applied those lessons now, for this SARS 2.

Other countries weren't as affected by SARS, and so didn't take as many lessons away from it. When this came, many were caught flat-footed. Some countries (like the United States) were even less-prepared than being flat-footed.

The more important factor is MERS, which SK seriously suffered a few years ago, (36 people killed) which was the highest fatality outside Middle East.

Totally fair and a good point.

Because you need high throughput machine or it is a very slow manual process. Such machine like the FilmArray from Biomérieux or the GeneXpert from Cepheid will only have their covid 19 add-on at the end of march, for the Cobas from Roche only now. When Korean had the homegrown Seegene one very quickly

Extensive testing needs the appropriate lab infrastructure and governance decisions to properly utilize them. Germany is another example of how to do that [0]

[0] https://apnews.com/ad9a6af47c3b55fd83080c9168afaaf4

Seegene, a private company, did

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-...