South Korea has long been considered a model country for its effective response to multiple waves of coronavirus, earning praise from the World Health Organization earlier this year after authorities successfully halted the spread of the initial outbreak.
Despite being among the first countries to be hit by the virus, South Korea has managed to avoid the type of stringent lockdown measures seen elsewhere in the world, thanks largely to a combination of aggressive testing and sophisticated track and trace techniques. But as the pandemic drags on into winter, the emergence of a so-called "third wave" has resulted in an apparently untraceable rise in new infections.
