Which World Leaders Are Handling the Coronavirus Best—and Worst

2. Moon Jae-in

South Korea’s comeback kid.

East Asia’s economic powerhouses—South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore—have done the best job so far of containing the pandemic. Of these, South Korea stands out for having beaten back an outbreak that had already gotten quite serious, and having done so without the kind of draconian lockdowns employed in much of the rest of the world. It didn’t get off to a great start, though. Moon, a liberal who took power after the impeachment of his predecessor in 2017 and is best known internationally for his efforts to normalize relations with North Korea, was initially pilloried for saying that the virus would “disappear before long” and assuring people they didn’t have to wear masks. But then, spread by a secretive church in the city of Daegu, the outbreak rapidly grew into what was, for a time, the largest outside of China. Things were quickly brought under control through extensive testing, an innovative system using phones to track contacts of infected individuals, and voluntary business shutdowns. While schools were closed, South Korea never had to implement full-scale shutdowns. It still has fewer than 10,000 cases and a death rate well below Europe and the United States. Earlier this month, 1.5 million Koreans signed a petition calling for Moon’s impeachment. Now, his poll numbers are at record highs heading into elections this month, and he’s lobbying other governments to adopt South Korea’s approach. Even if he loses the election—not impossible given the state of the economy—he’s almost guaranteed to be a fixture at U.N. summits and thought leader gatherings for decades to come, assuming those are things that still exist in the decades to come. Assuming we have decades to come. 

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