How are countries across the globe responding to the Coronavirus?

... or what are we doing wrong?

Image by: MiroslavaChrienova

The outbreak of the coronavirus drove the world to a halt. Over a third of the global population is on lockdown, with countries constantly taking new measures to slow down the spread of the virus.

The UK has extended its quarantine for another three weeks, yet the number of confirmed cases keeps growing, exceeding way over 120,000. With no regular testing or quarantining of travellers from overseas, UK’s loose border controls could be causing huge problems in the fight to stop the spread of Covid-19.

However, countries in Asia managed to contain the number of coronavirus cases and deaths at a low, without having to impose strict lockdown measures.

Here is how that was achieved:

Juwon Park is a Starbucks barista in London who was in South Korea at the time of the Covid-19 outbreak: “When it happened in February, the confirmed cases were tracked and kept records of. The government would sanitize everywhere and track people the confirmed case was in contact with.” Park explains that while borders were not closed and a major lockdown was escaped, this method of tracking down people with whom the confirmed case came in contact with has managed to vitally slow the spread of the virus.

Yet South Korea is not the only country that used this elimination technique to keep coronavirus cases low. Alain Chaussade is a site director in Singapore who explains that the government follows the population very closely: “Each time there is a confirmed case, they are tracking it and isolating all the contacts.”

Chaussade has been on quarantined for 14 days now, due to his site being closed as some workers have contracted the virus. “Officials call me three times a day: in the morning, afternoon and evening to check my temperature and to see if I am okay,” he explains, “they ask everybody to be on WhatsApp so that they can video call and see that they are at home.”

Eva Yao from Taiwan is positive that the reason why Asia is dealing so well with the pandemic now, is because they have gone through something similar in the past. “In 2003, WHO left Taiwan to face SARS alone,” she says, “so we already prepared for this kind of pandemic.”

Gretchen Shao, a university student in London, originally from China, explains that when the Covid-19 outbreak started there, the government constructed two new hospitals specifically for treating coronavirus infected patients. When confirmed cases reached over 10,000 in Wuhan the city was put on lockdown.

While China was the only country to take such extreme measures in fighting the spread of the virus, it proves to have worked well, with the number of their confirmed cases being lower than in most European countries and the United States (who currently have over 780,000 confirmed cases).

“I don’t think the situation is handled very well here,” says Malaika Williams, a student in Indiana, “America is given too many rights, people just don’t listen. In countries where my mum is from, Uganda, people are told to stay at home. And they do because otherwise they could get in trouble with the law.”

Chaussade, who is originally from France, also agrees: “People are much more disciplined in Asian than in Europe. When a rule is put in place, they follow immediately … in Europe you are not used to having constraints.”

Having laws and fines that will aid people to finally understand how critical the situation is could eventually stop the rapid spread of the virus. After all, some countries in Europe showed improvement.

Cyprus, in comparison to other European countries, took measures early, sealing the island’s border on the 14th March. Strict curfews were introduced and citizens can only leave their home once-a-day on a stand errand after receiving approval (via text) from the government.

So even if the government is unable to take measures, why put yourself at risk, when you can stay at home and help save lives?