How San Francisco's Chinatown Got Ahead of the Coronavirus

Despite being a small and historically underresourced nation, Bhutan has managed to contain the spread of the coronavirus and avoid all but one death from the virus during the entire duration of the pandemic thus far. Government officials acted swiftly when news of the novel coronavirus became public and implemented immediate testing, contact tracing, and quarantine measures that were well-received by citizens. According to a local journalist, "I don’t think any other country can say that leaders and ordinary people enjoy such mutual trust. This is the main reason for Bhutan’s success.”

During the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, volunteers across Belarus worked together to collect and deliver personal protective equipment to frontline workers, despite the Belarusian government denying the spread of the coronavirus. Using social media to organize, the volunteers "served as a kind of SWAT team able to bypass the bureaucracy to obtain the necessary equipment."

Both Finland and Norway have successfully kept COVID-19 cases at a minimum without fully implementing lockdowns within their countries thanks to a united government, closed borders, and mandatory quarantines. The strategy has also helped keep the economy intact compared to other countries which implemented "draconian" restrictions.

A combination of luck, learning, local responses, and listening has kept Germany's coronavirus cases manageable, even as the pandemic continues to impact much of the world. In particular, the ability to enact decentralized approaches and locally scale-up testing in conjunction with a high rate of trust in public health departments proved to be especially impactful.

Leaders of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in Minnesota acted early and aggressively when the coronavirus pandemic began sweeping the nation, and so far, it has appeared to have helped the region to keep the caseload low. Using knowledge from previous outbreaks, focusing on community-information management and keeping in close communication with state officials, the Fond du Lac Band "has largely managed to stay out of the headlines."

Several rural counties in Oregon and Idaho have managed to slow the spread of the coronavirus through early intervention strategies and community compliance. Although the low population and rural nature of the regions also played a role in the success of the counties, the areas still adopted tactics such as mask-wearing and social media campaigns and implemented collaborative efforts between elected and emergency officials. Because of these efforts, several of the counties have been removed from Covid-19 watch lists.

Vermont has seen very few cases of COVID-19 compared to its neighboring states after implementing early preparedness protocols. While part of the success could be due to the small and homogeneous population of the state, the credit also goes to the governor ceding communications to health care officials and local media suspending comments on coronavirus-related pieces to mitigate the spread of misinformation.

Senegal's success thus far in keeping coronavirus cases at manageable levels is due largely in part to a prioritization of increasing the number of beds available for COVID-19 patients. After years of running epidemic simulations, the Senegalese Health Emergency Operation Center was able to act swiftly when the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, and convert hospital beds into ICU beds and hotel room beds into non-emergent beds.

Taiwan has gone largely unscathed thus far by the coronavirus, showing that their methodology of relying on civic technology has merit to be a model for other countries. Through a combination of "community initiatives, hackathons, and digital deliberation" Taiwan has been able to utilize "broad digital participation and community-driven tool development," both democratically and efficiently.

Strict and early knockdowns and consistent public health messaging have helped Australia effectively eliminate Covid-19. Now, the country and its residents have largely returned to business as usual, despite many citizens still waiting to receive the Covid vaccine.