America in Korean is "miguk", or "beautiful country".

These days in Korea, television stations cover the United States with images of lines of people waiting in line for nCoV tests, or graphs depicting exponential deaths from pandemic.

A recent editorial was published on Hankyoreh, a major leftist daily newspaper, titled "Covid-19 and the Fall of America".

But not only in the media, the US also became the subject of discussions in the meeting rooms, classrooms, and dinners, with the general question of "How did America get lost?".

This was an unexpected change in Korea, a country that for decades often viewed the US as a "big brother", as a successful and progressive model that Koreans wanted to follow.

This shift began after President Donald Trump's victory in 2016, when many South Koreans were surprised by Trump's election after a series of scandals.

For many Koreans, 2020 exposes serious problems in the US system, from partisan divisions, loss of confidence in the government, to gaps in the health system.

The admiration for the US has dwindled as South Korea has grown from one of the poorest countries to the world's tenth economy, according to Lee Hyun-song, professor of translation and translation at University of Foreign Languages.

"There was a strong belief that we could learn a lot from America, but then the belief in Americans collapsed when they voted for Trump," he said.

Korea has always maintained a friendly relationship with the US and a 2013 BBC survey found Koreans had the most positive views of the US among the Asian countries that participated in the poll.

American education has long been considered the gold standard in Korea, a necessary "passport" for the elite.

History has recorded a number of waves of anti-Americanism in Korea, but most lasted only for a short time and aimed at only one particular aspect.

Kim Won-jang, a KBS reporter, the national broadcaster of Korea, expressed his disappointment in a recent column "No longer America number one".

"Is America really the number one country in the world?" Kim asked in an article published on 9/11.

However, Kim added that even though America's reputation has been severely damaged, South Korea will maintain an alliance with the US to curb other countries like China, Russia and North Korea.

Song Kim said that the US may no longer be the attractive destination for many Koreans as before.

Professor Lee Hyun-song said the possibility that President-elect Joe Biden could slow or reverse the decline of America's reputation in South Korea, while helping to heal the relationship between the two countries.

Kim said that all eyes will now be on the new president to see if he can control his "America first" mentality, which has left many US alliances on the brink of collapse.

However, observers insist there are damage that will not be restored, as it is difficult for Koreans to erase the image of American hospitals filled with people and crowds without masks.

"Obviously Koreans will not give the US the unconditional support they used to be," Lee said.