5 lessons to learn from countries who have cautiously lifted their coronavirus lockdown

It’s incredible how some countries are restarting their activities in baby steps and others still seeing the curve going to peaks which we would never expect.

Is this delusional? Is the coronavirus reacting differently in each country? Are people reacting differently? What is driving to stop the virus to spread? What are the factors making more people sick?

The thing is no one can really absorb everything that is going on right now in each country specifically to make a standardised action plan at a global level, but there are some best practises which lead to some countries to re initiate their day to day activities and rebuild trust by lifting some of the restrictions.

Obviously no one can really predict and say that the x or y country is safe now, because everything can change at anytime.

The good thing is that there are countries who’ve actually prepared for the impact of virus and took measures which were crucial to avoid the virus to spread.

Countries like Taiwan who were strongly impacted by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, was among the worst-hit territories, along with Hong Kong, Vietnam and southern China. More than 150,000 people were quarantined on the island — 180 kilometers (110 miles) off China’s southeastern coast — and 181 people died.

Being SARS an epidemic which is not comparable to current pandemic we are living, it’s still a red flag through much of Asia and cast a long shadow over how people responded to future outbreaks.

This indeed helped many parts of the region to react faster to the current coronavirus outbreak and to take this situation more seriously.

Some of the lessons which pointed out and capture attention are:

Points of entry strictly controlled and suspected cases were quarantined immediately.

Vietnam was one of the first countries to halt passenger flights from high-risk areas and to quarantine international travellers. Since late January, the government has required all people arriving from China to submit a health declaration and undertake quarantine in government-controlled facilities for 14 days. These requirements were gradually expanded to those arriving from the Republic of Korea, the United States, and EU countries. Quarantine is largely in military facilities and is free of charge.

Introduction of strict punishments for anyone found breaching home quarantine orders

Introducing fines to everyone breaking the quarantine rules was necessary to help the police’s tracking system in Taiwan.

Daily updates by the Health Authorities

The Direção Geral de Saúde (Health Authority department) in Portugal had scheduled daily live broadcasts across all digital channels with new updates about the Coronavirus figures and recommendations for the public.

This has been proven very effective to ensure a clear communication and a channel for people to enquire also about questions that they had about the virus in their city.

Epidemic control teams have carried out targeted testing and aggressive contact tracing.

The National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Vietnam succeeded in culturing and cultivating the SARS-CoV-2 virus early, enabling domestic institutions to produce test kits at an early stage. The Ministry of Health initially targeted only those with travel histories for testing, along with close contacts of confirmed cases and people presenting with COVID-19 symptoms.

Local authorities taking a four-tier approach to contact tracing and isolation

Localized centers for disease control and preventive health facilities in Vietnam collaborated closely with hospitals in case detection, isolation and treatment. Confirmed cases are considered tier one and must be isolated and treated in health facilities. Home-based isolation of confirmed cases is not allowed in Vietnam, to prevent transmission to family members.

These are not all but just some of the measures which helped to contain the virus. Unfortunately most of the countries were not really prepared for this pandemic and this caused to be a major factor for the number of fatalities.

What can be learned is that for any situation in any part of the world that involves deaths in one way or the other, always calls for attention and specific actions in case something happens similarly in any other part of the world, in the future.