One reason is South Korea had to deal with SARS previously and were better prepared.

This one is easy, all neighbors of China have had multiple dangers of epidemics before.

This is just the first one that spread globally.

That article says the disease arrived in Europe in December, but the earliest case occurred in China in November.

The origin of the virus can help immensely- for tracking, vaccination formulation, etc.

We have handled it atrociously here in the US, and the reasons were myriad. But it's disingenuous to compare nations, we all operate differently.