How did Moon Jae-In’s government respond to the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020?

In early 2020, the administration of Moon Jae-In responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with an aggressive mobilization of South Korea’s public health apparatus.1

Although the country appeared to be a major epicenter of the outbreak in February 2020, these measures successfully flattened the curve of infection and significantly reduced the projected incidence of the respiratory disease. This effective management of the crisis became a central theme of the Democratic Party’s campaign for the April 2020 legislative election, which resulted in a resounding victory for Moon’s coalition, granting them the largest legislative majority since the country's transition to democracy in 1987.1