The case of COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the necessity for governments to institute new policies swiftly in order to address the spread of infections. In 2019 and 2020, the countries responded differently to the pandemic, leading to a variety of results discussed by Hoseinpour Dehkordi et al. (2020). As an outcome, the nations present a variety of statistics for the speed and acceleration of new cases and the number of recoveries. Several policies, including social isolation, lockdown, quarantine, and fast detection of cases, are effective in controlling the disease.
Looking at the statistics, one may see that China, South Korea, and Iran seem to manage the pandemic with a combination of policies. At the same time, Italy, Spain, the United States, ad Germany demonstrated a slower response with limited policy implementation. Still, their change in numbers after the institution of new policies also supported the positive effect of certain activities. According to Hoseinpour Dehkordi et al. (2020), daily statistics confirm the effectiveness of lockdown – the closure of borders to tourists and foreign visitors. This policy lowers the number of confirmed cases in the country that institutes it.
Similarly, the authors highlight the need to introduce several policies at the same time to increase their combined effectiveness. Such policies are based on social isolation – they limit human contact to reduce the transmission of the disease. In the case of South Korea, these include social avoidance, quarantine for infected persons, and isolation of all individuals regardless of their infection status (Hoseinpour Dehkordi et al., 2020). This has led to South Korea having a case fatality rate to be seven times lower than Italy, which did not institute these policies (Hoseinpour Dehkordi et al., 2020). Thus, the use of several policies seems to be the most effective in preventing the increased spread of COVID-19.
Reference
Hoseinpour Dehkordi, A., Alizadeh, M., Derakhshan, P., Babazadeh, P., & Jahandideh, A. (2020). Understanding epidemic data and statistics: A case study of COVID‐19.Journal of Medical Virology, 92(7), 868-882.Web.