Actions Government Of Countries Are Taking To Fight Covid-19 (coronavirus)
 |
| Covid-19 government intervention |
The disease has put to test the world's best healthcare system. It has overwhelmed the best and keeps defeating ideas. Italy, one of the world's worst hit, confesses to be out of ideas.
With about 200 countries hit, many use different approaches. And some have been able to curb the curve their favour. Other countries can learn from them.
China, which is the origin of the disease, has been able to reduce the number of new infections. Presently, they have less than 3000 active cases. This Is commendable considering the figure they had a month ago. However, others are just hitting the roof. What did China do that change the game? What did other country do that is helping them? Let us take a look at some.
Information
China was losing citizens to covid-19. It was glaring. There was no denying that the virus was killing. They knew and believed there was a virus. They quickly saw that nobody was spared. They decided to act fast. With the alarm sent to the world health organization (WHO), very few countries believe about the virus. A good example of a country that activated their prevention plan is North Korea. They block their border with China even as of January. That is the first country to ban all travel from China. Russia did but was a little late. However, China is still able to contain the disease. Some that believe never bother to know how much the virus can spread. Some countries like Nigeria thought that the virus is limited to Europe with a much colder climate unlike Africa. They let their guard down. That prevented them from acting fast. Also, the United States of America thought the virus was one hoax coming from China. America is now suffering their lakadastic attitude towards the virus. Some government spend money in doing gingles to enlighten their citizens.
Read Also: Drugs for treating covid-19
The first step is to believe the viirus by both the government and individuals. Knowing the level of fatality can help in pushing everyone into action. Unfortunately, some politicians in Nigeria doubt it. They end up telling those who they are leading that the news about the disease is fake. The worst set of persons whose ignorance can help spread the disease are religious leaders. They have loyal followers who believe everything they say. Many are in Nigeria telling their subjects the virus is just a news that will pass away and that they should not worry. Believing that the virus if it truly exist will affect only a particular religion can give their followers a sense of confidence that will hinder them from following simple instructions.
Testing
Symptoms from the disease normally start to manifest between 2 to 14 days. Although, some people may show symptoms after like 21 days according to some reports. During this period, they can spread the disease unknowingly. To avoid this window stage, China started to test as much as possible anybody they can. They made the test fee and easily accessible. Infected persons are immediately sent to an isolation center. The faster the test, the better. Another country that is doing tremendously well is South Korea. Within a space of 4 week, they have conducted more than 300000 tests. And this is wonderful when you consider the population of South Korea.
A look at the countries hitting the high shows that the number of tests is less when compared to their population. In the United States of America (USA), testing in public hospitals is free but the cost is very expensive in the private sector. And it is not easily accessible. In Nigeria, testing is only done in the public designated hospital. It is available to only those who fall into one or more of the three conditions; (1) coming back from one of the countries with infection within the past 14 days and having some of the symptoms (2) having come in contact with a confirmed case and having the symptoms (3) a healthcare worker. This can be dangerous as some may be asymptomatic while spreading it to those who may exhibit symptoms. But because the index case is asymptomatic and did not present to the hospital, the contact may not get the test because the case did not fall into any of the categories.
New Hospital
In the early stage of the infection, China erected a 1000 bed hospital within a space of 6 days and another 1300 bed hospital in 15 days. This was done in the epicenter of the infection. And that was barely after a month the infection started with a few cases. They predicted the outcome on time and acted fast. As they acted like a victim of another country's target, they got a lot of sympathy support from the world. They got so many free medical supplies in the early days. They became sufficient and we're able to fight off the battle. However, many countries now fight the virus on their own without support from other countries because almost every country is fighting the same battle.
So many other countries are currently building new hospitals. But not with the speed and resources deployed in China. Hoping that this will pass in no distant time, many countries don't want to spend in a structure they believe will not be useful immediately after the covid-19 battle is won. Instead they convert old buildings into isolation centers, equip it to some extent and start to treat covid-19 patients in it. China did the same and one of such buildings collapsed killing about 10 persons.
Contact Tracing
This is by far the most important thing any reasonable government will invest all their energy on if they want to end covid-19. China did make a lot of sacrifice. Any identified covid-19 patient is immediately isolated and all those that made contact with the patient within the past 14 days are quarantined for another 14 days and if no symptoms are allowed to go. Those who developed symptoms will undergo test. Those who tested positive will be isolated.
In order to make the tracing hitch free, patients are asked to provide their history within the past 14 days. Failure to provide accurate or attempt to give wrong information is punished. Nigeria has done well initially in the contact tracing thing but has been overwhelmed by the number of contacts to trace after hitting over 135 cases. Tracing over 5000 persons became a milestone too difficult to achieve. Now, there is speculation that the infection will get to 35000 if those contacts do not submit themselves. Another thing facing the battle in Nigeria is the issue of wrong contact details. Travellers are enjoined to drop their information about their travel history within the past 14 days including their contact details. So many people drop the wrong phone number and home address making it difficult to get them.
Border Closure
The first step many countries around the world took was to stop travellers from China and other countries with high levels of covid-19 infection into their country. China never did that. But they did close Wuhan from other China cities. The only train that passes through the city was never allowed to stop. The window blind was always down. Nobody sees what is inside and those inside don't have the privilege to see outside. In some countries, travellers from high risk countries are to self quarantine/isolate for 14 days. But many never did especially in places like Nigeria. Some countries provide a hotel for this activity. You stay in the hotel free for the 14 days but provide your own food.
Shutdown/Lockdown
In the beginning, life was normal even with covid-19 pandemic within the city of Wuhan. Immediately China saw that the disease was beginning to spread to other cities, the government ordered a lockdown of the city. Schools, parties and other activities that necessitated the gathering of people were shut down. People were not allowed out of their home for one month. Very few essential services were running. Food can be ordered online, hospitals are running including pharmacy shops. Because humans are generally stubborn, they employed the services of security personnel. Some countries like Russia use live lions while India uses their Police. As the virus continued to spread outside the city of Wuhan, the government included other cities in the shutdown. Indian is another country that has copied China's shutdown of gathering of people including closure of many shops. Adults are allowed to come out once a week for only essential things. And that must be done within 6am to 6pm. Indian encourage their citizens to stock up on time to avoid coming out. However, the hunger battle in Indian is making this decision not to work. So many people that depend on their daily work for daily bread are suffering. Some come out to see what business they can do.
Economic Plan
Many countries that the virus affected fear for one thing; the impact of the disease on the economy. They fear spending too much to fight a virus that will likely come and go in no distant time. Building hospitals, diagnostic laboratories, isolation centers is like a waste of resources. But the few countries who put these things in others are seeing results. With proper treatment during isolation, there is less fatality with less transmissions rate. Money for research and development of a viable vaccine is eating deep into the finance of some countries. However, this is a good move as China has been able to show from research that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine is effective in the fight against covid-19.
Also, the lockdown of the system affects the economy of the nation. Countries affected lose money in staying at home. The result is going to be a recession. Some countries fearing lockdown of the system will impact too much on the economy are not willing to do it. Some that are doing it want to stop to bring back the economy. The citizens suffer the consequences of the disease but to help reduce the economic impact on the poor, some countries like the USA release money to some people earning below some amount of dollars yearly. In a tweet, the president taunted those who in the past four years in their social media say #notmypresident will not get this stimulus. Others do remove or reduce tax, pause loans or give loans to some sectors of the economy at a very low interest rate. All this is to reduce the impact of the virus. It helps in the fight against the virus in a way.
Read Also: Steps in preventing covid-19 (coronavirus)
Online HealthCare
Before the emergence of covid-19, there was already pressure on the health sector in many countries. Most health care facilities have few staff to handle the day-to-day operations. The pressure was exposed by the increasing number of infected patients with covid-19. With more concentration on covid-19 patients, the other person needing attention suffered from care. To fill the lapses, China switched to online consultation. There was a jump in online consultation during the peak of the virus in China. Also, minor surgeries were delayed except for major ones. If the USA can adopts this, many countries in Africa will struggle.
Share On Social Media With Family And Friends To Show You Care!Air Disinfection
One of the steps some countries are taking is the use of machines to spray chemicals into the air. This began when it was suspected that it is airborne. Nobody is very sure how effective this is. But it may be solving one or two. And most countries that have adopted this are those with high level of new cases. Nigeria has not done such yet and don't need it now.
Comments
Post a Comment
Please have your say