Containing coronavirus: lessons from Asia

South Korea's national government took quick action and implemented sweeping policy changes that have helped the country better control the spread of Covid-19. Contact tracing and democratizing the creation of testing supplies were two key aspects, but a major influencer was how quickly the country set these actions into motion by centralizing their approach.

Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea have each seen success through their efforts to contain the coronavirus. Using methods such as aggressive isolation methods that include penalties, contact tracing and rapid intervention strategies that were in place from previously dealing with other communicable diseases, the lessons these countries have learned could provide information for countries still struggling to slow the spread.

Rwanda, a country with the same population of Ohio, has emerged as an example of how to slow the spread of coronavirus, with only 1,500 cases reported so far. Besides initiating a lockdown, implementing free testing, and recruiting community health care workers, police, and college students to be contact tracers, officials also used "the same structure, same people, same infrastructure and laboratory diagnostics" that had been working to contain the spread of HIV.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, Taiwan – a country of nearly 24 million people – has reported less than 500 cases and only seven deaths, largely due to the rapid implementation of a public health emergency response plan. By successfully using a combination of quarantine measures, social pressure, technology, and consistent communication, the country was able to begin reopening in May.

Taiwan was expected to be inundated with COVID-19 cases, but that never happened at least in part due to the swift and aggressive actions enacted by the government. Integral to the approach was enhanced transparency from the government, which included text messages to those who were quarantined, as well as using lessons learned from the SARS outbreak.

Due to its proximity to China, experts forcasted that Taiwan would experience a high number of coronavirus cases, but aggressive intervention strategies have kept the overall caseload much lower than expected. New regulations, especially focused on people traveling through the airport – such as enrolling travelers in a national coronavirus database, taking their temperature in the airport, and mandating a two-week quarantine – granted the government the capability of being able to track the spread of potential incoming cases.

Italy, once a major hotspot for Covid-19 cases, has seen a significant decrease in the spread of the coronavirus after implementing strict government regulations including mandatory travel restrictions and isolation protocols. The success of the measures has been evident as the country begins to reopen – lifting restrictions in two-week increments to account for the "virus’s incubation period" – with no sign of the virus still spreading and hospitals remaining largely empty of critical cases.

Lessons learned from the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2015 helped South Korea uniquely prepare a quick and effective response to the recent coronavirus outbreak. With several new strategies in place including contact tracing protocols and "laws clarifying the roles of national and local government, public health, and industry sectors in the event of another outbreak," the country was able to largely contain the virus faster than other countries which reported cases emerging at similar times.

The local government in Kerala implemented swift and aggressive measures to contain the coronavirus, within three days of learning that China was experiencing an outbreak. The success of the state is largely due to the way the government functions under the "Kerala model," which is a culmination of "decades of progressive politics and an egalitarian development strategy." Although the curve has been flattened, there are still significant socio-economic ramifications that are posing a challenge to recovery.

With the goal of containing the spread of Covid-19, the national governments in Australia and New Zealand took an approach that was predicated on letting public health experts take the lead. Although this approach – which led to early and aggressive restrictions of movement – was not met favorably by all at first, it has proved successful so far, leading both countries to reset the goal to eliminating the virus rather than just containing it.