How different countries have responded to the COVID-19 outbreak
People stand in line as they wait to get tested for COVID-19 at a recently opened testing center in the Harlem section of New York, Monday, April 20, 2020. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers would need to be tested for the coronavirus daily before city officials could start to loosen restrictions that have shuttered most workplaces and forced residents to cover their faces in public, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
It has now been 17 weeks since China began reporting its first cases of pneumonia caused by SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for causing COVID-19.
As the total number of confirmed cases surpasses 2.5 million in 210 countries and territories across the globe, different governments have attempted to contain the virus in a multitude of ways with varying degrees of success.
Here’s how several countries have fared in their struggles to contain the pandemic over the past four months.
United States
The U.S. currently reports over half a million confirmed cases of COVID-19 with over 126,000 closed cases. As of April 21, almost 40,000 people who tested positive for the virus in the U.S. have died.
The U.S. currently leads the world in confirmed cases and deaths caused by COVID-19.
The White House declared a national emergency due to COVID-19 on March 13. As of April 11, all 50 U.S. states are under a major disaster declaration due to the pandemic.
On March 15, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) advised Americans to avoid gathering in groups of 50 or more people throughout the next eight weeks. The next day, the Trump administration recommended Americans to avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people.
National efforts to curb the spread of the virus in the U.S. have primarily come in the form of travel bans and the Senate’s passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES), a $2 trillion bill drafted to help alleviate the economic repercussions of COVID-19.
The $2 trillion provided by the CARES Act will provide American corporations and small businesses with a combined $877 billion while endowing state and local governments with about $340 billion.
$153 billion of the CARES Act will be allocated to public health, while another estimated $43.7 billion will be allotted to education and miscellaneous uses.
In addition to this, the CARES Act will grant Americans with an estimated $560 billion in emergency stimulus funding on an individual or family basis, depending on how Americans filed their taxes for the past fiscal year.
State governments have largely been responsible for urging Americans to stay at home. Without the declaration of a national lockdown, each U.S. state’s governor has since issued orders urging citizens to only leave their homes for necessary tasks and shutting down businesses deemed non-essential.
Each state’s implementation of shutdowns varies in its exact wording, such as which businesses are deemed essential, or in the case of Oklahoma, only extending a “Safer at Home” order to people older than 65 and “vulnerable individuals.”
Currently, there is no nation-wide testing available to Americans. The CDC recommends individuals who suspect they have COVID-19 to “call [their] medical provider first” to seek testing in their area.
The CDC also recommends that people who suspect they have COVID-19 should stay home for the duration of their symptoms if possible and to “rest and stay hydrated.”
China
China is currently reporting over 82,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, though only about 1,000 of the patients included in this total are currently infected with the virus.
Of the reported 81,000 closed cases, nearly 78,000 have recovered, while over 4,500 patients who tested positive have died.
On Jan. 23, less than a month after the first reports of the virus, the Chinese government locked down several cities in Hubei province, including the outbreak’s epicenter in Wuhan.
On Jan. 24, construction began on Huoshenshan Hospital, a 1,000-bed hospital built specifically to help people in Wuhan who have contracted COVID-19. Construction was finished in a total of ten days as the hospital opened its doors on Feb. 3.
Through the use of AliPay and WeChat — two mobile phone apps widely used in China — the Chinese government was able to track individuals’ exposure to the virus, using a color-coded system of red, yellow and green indicators available to staff at various checkpoints across the nation.
Other nations have questioned the accuracy of China’s testing numbers in part due to the nation’s reluctance to include the full amount of asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 in official data.
As of April 1, the Chinese National Health Commission has begun to work on declassifying asymptomatic carrier tallies.
Italy
Italy is currently the third-most infected country by total confirmed cases, reporting over 180,000 total confirmed cases and over 24,500 total deaths.
The first two confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Italy were reported on Jan. 30.
On Feb. 22, following the deaths of two people who were confirmed to be infected with the virus, the first city-wide lockdowns were enacted in about a dozen towns in northern Italy.
On March 8, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced the expansion of the quarantine zone to include most of northern Italy, affecting over 16 million people in the regions of Lombardy, Veneto, Piedmont, Marche and Emilia-Romagna.
By the next day, quarantine measures restricting Italians to necessary and emergency travel were implemented nationally, making Italy the first nation to implement a national lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
On March 11, Comte announced that all commercial and retail businesses would be closed, providing exceptions only for businesses that provide essential services. By March 21, closures caused by the shutdown expanded to include all non-necessary businesses and industries.
Currently, Italy’s lockdown is set to end on May 3, while Conte is reportedly taking into consideration the possibility of allowing Italians to leave their homes for non-essential purposes on May 4.
South Korea
Unlike other densely populated nations with advanced economies, South Korea has largely succeeded in slowing the spread of COVID-19, currently reporting just over 10,000 cases and over 200 deaths.
Part of South Korea’s success comes from its use of big data. Through the collection of information from surveillance cameras, mobile phones and credit card transactions, the South Korean government has managed to trace social connections that risk transmitting COVID-19.
Although South Korea began to report cases of COVID-19 on the same day as the U.S., South Korea began testing its citizens on a far greater scale at a much faster rate.
Within a week of its first reported case of COVID-19, South Korean officials met with medical companies to urge the mass production of tests. As of mid-March, South Korea has produced 100,000 kits per day and has begun exporting tests to other nations in need of more tests per capita.
By mid-March, South Korea had conducted over 300,000 tests or about one in every 170 people. Although the U.S. has since caught up with South Korea in the number of tests conducted, it should be noted that 300,000 tests in the U.S. would equate to just 1 in every 1,090 people.
