Everyone is wearing a mask, whether or not they are showing symptoms. SK gov has a mask delivery program through the post office. This helps limit the spread. While the US gov tells everyone to not wear a mask, unless they are showing symptoms.
In many Asian countries the air is bad enough that most people wear a mask anyway for pollution reasons. Thus there is more mask availability infrastructure in place (I don't think SK was ever that bad but I don't know)
1. https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/diy-homemade-mask-protec...
But I'd love to hear the details from someone that knows more. That's potentially a lot of masks to be churning out.
Obviously factories have abilities to ramp up production to meet demand so the above is simplistic. However they can only ramp up so far (or fast) when the limit is reached the above applies.
You know, "if a large enough actor really wants to" applies just as well well to computers as it does to paper masks.
I don't think any of us are experts in the supply chain logistics of South Korean face masks. I'd rather read about it from someone who is than guessing.
[0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfchronicle.com/oursf/amp/L...
This bothers me greatly. People who wind up having symptoms cannot retroactively go and put the mask on for the week prior to them noticing.