How is South Korea's economy still alive?

With each economies falling left and right, South Korea remains standing. People are still roaming about, continuing with their daily lives, working, buying food, making the economy move. How did they control their outbreak so well?

The simple answer is that they controlled it well, but duh. They had a coronavirus outbreak in 2015 known as the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and they learned their lesson from there. With rising number of cases early on, they were able to plateau their numbers at around 10,000 cases, but keep in mind that people are still continuing with their daily lives.

With a low number of cases, biotech companies in South Korea paired with local health authorities to create massive amounts of test kits for the new coronavirus. They performed contact tracing, which is basically testing everyone that the person with coronavirus came in contact with, and isolating them if they tested positive. Even then, that isn't a very efficient nor reliable way to ensure safety.

The next steps are the 2 most important, which we can learn from. Private healthcare companies and and national healthcare systems worked together to set up mostly-free testing sites, something that we haven't been on top of. The most important step was making sure to track where the coronavirus was, which is the main reason why most people are still able to continue with their daily routines.

Back in 2015, Korea had laws implemented that allowed data and security footage of positive-tested patient. That means they could track where everyone was going and see everyone who has come into contact with coronavirus; basically knowing where coronavirus was, and thus informing all citizens through emergency alerts where virus hotspots were. Apps compiled information and created maps where people could see if they came into contact with anyone along the way, which allowed for contact tracing to be way easier. These helped avoid those aggressive lockdowns and the economy is still holding on.

The biggest question is: will we allow this method to be implemented in the US? Are people willing to hand over their privacy in advance of a pandemic for public health? Do we have the technology to cover the entire country? Are we willing to sacrifice our privacy for a working economy?