This idea first implemented in South Korea just make a lot of sense for a variety of reasons if there are enough test kits to support it:

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday introduced drive-through tests as part of efforts to fight the coronavirus, a week after he questioned the effectiveness of the method widely used in South Korea.

Trump made the announcement during a White House press conference at which he declared a national emergency to fight the growing outbreak in the United States.

“We’ve been in discussions with pharmacies and retailers to make drive-through tests available in the critical locations identified by public health professionals,” he said. “The goal is for individuals to be able to drive up and be swabbed without having to leave your car.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

As unhealthy as Kim Jong-un is it would be wise for him to not become infected with the coronavirus, but I doubt he is avoid Pyongyang. Every year North Korea’s military goes through its winter training cycle:

Speculation is growing that North Korean leader Kim Jong-is staying away from Pyongyang out of concern over the coronavirus in the country’s crowded capital, following reports that he has been observing military exercises across the country for weeks.

According to North Korea’s state media reports, Kim has apparently been out of Pyongyang since Feb. 26 when he presided over a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party.

Media reports said Kim inspected joint exercises in Wonsan in the country’s eastern province of Kangwon, Feb. 28. It is speculated he moved from Pyongyang to Wonsan the previous day.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Some further good news for South Korea is that President Trump is not putting any new restrictions on the country and instead focusing on Europe:

The United States may “re-evaluate” its travel warning for Korea and consider an early lifting of restrictions as the new coronavirus situation in the country improves, U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday.

Trump announced in a national address that the United States will be suspending most travel from Europe for 30 days starting Friday at midnight, to protect against the coronavirus pandemic. The entry ban excludes Britain and also exempts U.S. citizens and permanent residents.  

“At the same time, we are monitoring the situation in China and in South Korea,” said Trump. “And, as their situation improves, we will re-evaluate the restrictions and warnings that are currently in place for a possible early opening.”  

The U.S. State Department has a travel advisory of Level 4, the highest in its four-tier system, urging Americans not to travel to Daegu, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Korea. It has a Level 3 alert for the rest of Korea, urging Americans to “reconsider” visits to the country. Korea has in place in its airports a multi-tiered health screening of individuals flying to the United States, as requested by the Trump administration.  

Trump said in his speech that the European Union “failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots” and that as a result, “a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but members of the Korean government instead of making racist comments about U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris should instead be thanking him because he probably made the recommendation to not add any travel restrictions on Korea.

The trend is that things are getting better in South Korea which also continues to feature a very low mortality rate from COVID-19:

South Korea saw another decline in its daily new infections Friday, as massive testings in the southeastern city of Daegu, the epicenter of the new coronavirus here, were nearing an end, but health authorities were ramping up measures to contain cluster infections across the nation.

The 110 new cases of the coronavirus, which were detected Thursday and marked the lowest number of daily infections in more than two weeks, brought the nation’s total infections to 7,979. 

A total of 177 patients were discharged from hospitals Thursday after they were declared cured, marking the biggest one-day increase so far and exceeding the number of daily new infections for the first time since Jan. 20, when the virus was first detected on South Korean soil. 

Thursday’s additional cases, which followed the 114 new cases detected Wednesday, were also far below the daily increases of 500 or more last week.

So far, 67 people, mostly elderly patients with underlying illnesses, have died in South Korea from the respiratory virus that emerged in China late last year, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if you do the math 67 deaths out of 7,979 people infected comes out to a far less than 1% mortality rate. The rate is even lower because many people likely had the coronavirus and were not tested and recovered from it.

Predictably the Chinese government is trying to deflect their own incompetence in handling the coronavirus by resorting to nationalism and blaming the United States:

Something that had been merely suggested before has now been blown wide into the open in China.

A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, Zhao Lijian, tweeted yesterday that “it might be the US army” that brought the coronavirus to China, giving an official boost to a conspiracy theory that had been allowed to circulate on Chinese social media for weeks. The conspiracy posits that 300 athletes from the US military who in October attended the 7th Military World Games in Wuhan, where the epidemic first broke out, were infected with the virus, thereby spreading it in China.

Zhao’s comment accompanied a video from a US congressional hearing this week on the country’s response to the epidemic. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in the video that some patients who were previously diagnosed to have died from the flu were found to have actually died from the coronavirus. The video began trending on Chinese social network Weibo, with many commenting that they now believe firmly that the US had covered up facts related to the epidemic.

Quartz

You can read more at the link, but President Trump should speak up about this at some point because clearly the Chinese government is trying to blame the U.S. for something their incompetence allowed to happen.

U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris visited Incheon International Airport on Wednesday to see how fever checks on U.S.-bound passengers are going, a day after South Korea’s government took over the anti-coronavirus screening mission from airlines.

Harris visited a boarding gate in the Second Terminal of the airport, west of Seoul, and observed officials taking the temperatures of passengers of an Atlanta-bound Korean Air plane and received a briefing about the screening process.

“Terrific visit to Incheon Airport to see 1st-hand ROKG measures to combat COVID-19 & mgmt of travelers to USA. Impressed w/ROK’s robust & comprehensive response efforts to limit the virus’ spread. Thanks to all for the hard work,” he wrote in his Twitter account afterwards. 

On Tuesday, the government said it will take over the anti-coronavirus screening mission from airlines and conduct health examinations on passengers boarding flights to the U.S. from the Incheon airport and Gimhae International Airport in the southeastern city of Busan.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.