South Korea has indeed had a partial lockdown. Schools have been closed, football matches have been cancelled, public gatherings including church services have been banned, there's been a social distancing campaign, restaurants have had seating restrictions, people have worn face masks, there has been a strict quarantine regime, there's been a work from home policy, and people have mostly stayed at home based on recommendations. While it hasn't been a total lockdown like in France, it's been a lot like Norway or Denmark.

Also, South Korea had started relaxing those measures on Wednesday last week. And then immediately, one infected person leads to 7,200 suspected cases, with the closing of 2,100 bars and night clubs. They had barely started opening up before they had to close down again. And all of this comes from just a single individual. Remember that probably 99% of virus carriers are asymptomatic.

The same thing has happened in Wuhan. After 76 days of a total lockdown (much more than France even), when Wuhan opened up, they immediately had new cases. The same thing has also happened in Singapore and Hong Kong. When Singapore relaxed, they went from 2,000 cases to 23,000 in a month. Hong Kong managed to quash the second wave due to a new lockdown.

What people need to understand is that Korea was praised as a model on how to fight the virus successfully. But whenever a country opens up, the virus always spikes again. All of these countries basically confirm that Giesecke was right when he said that eventually, all countries will end up in more or less the same situation as Sweden. It's just a question of how much poverty and how much damage the society's economy will be afflicted with before the virus has finished its course.