Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore: Lessons for Canada in fighting Covid-19

As the coronavirus outbreak began to show signs of spreading the United States, six counties in the Bay Area of California quickly instituted stay at home and shelter-in-place orders. Although the virus is still spreading in much of the country, the early and aggressive measures taken in this region are believed to have contributed to the lower-than-expected caseload reported by hospitals in these counties.

Although Germany has reported over 50,000 cases of coronavirus, the country is seeing a lesser death toll from the pandemic as compared to other countries. Like other countries working to contain the spread, Germany was quick to enact widespread testing a persistent contact tracing, but the country also implemented early measures to protect the more senior residents which has kept the infection rate low for this highly susceptible population.

Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong have each shown success with slowing the pace of the coronavirus outbreak due in part from learning lessons during the 2002 SARS outbreak. Combining different approaches to social distancing and quarantine, travel restrictions, and public health campaigns focused on hygiene best practices, the countries have shown that it doesn't necessarily take "China’s draconian measures" to mitigate the spread.

As countries scramble to figure out how to stop the coronavirus outbreak, China is an example of how unprecedented measures to self-quarantine and self-distancing measures can work to slow transmission rates. Commonly refered to as "flattening the curve," this practice allows for the health-care system to avoid being overwhelmed with cases, which in turn means more people can be treated.

As countries continue to try to contain the coronavirus pandemic, "non-pharmaceutical initiatives" are showing promise as a means to slow the spread. Countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan – all of which enacted travel restrictions, quarantine methods, and social distancing protocols early – have been able to slow the rate of transmission to some degree.

The United States and Italy have been playing catch up in the mitigation of the coronavirus pandemic and were resistant to implementing social distancing, while other countries took more aggressive approaches. Now both countries are looking to China and South Korea to learn how sweeping actions and industrialized scaling of measures such as fever clinics, temperature check points, portable CAT scanning, and social isolation, have helped to contain the pandemic.

Singapore has seemingly been able to contain the coronavirus outbreak by relying on quick actions taken by the government and lessons learned from both the SARS and H1N1 outbreaks that impacted the region years ago. With "ready-made government quarantine facilities and a 330-bed, state-of-the-art national center for managing infectious diseases," the region has yet to see a death from this novel coronavirus despite 96 people identified as infected.

As California’s Bay Area is weeks into its shelter-in-place order – the first in the nation – experts are seeing indications that it’s working in the fight against COVID19, but at the same time needs to continue. Health officials are seeing signs that the increase of cases could be flattening, which was the goal of social distancing, and has been giving the area more time to prepare for a spike, which other experts say is inevitable. Either way, the stay-at-home mandate is helping reduce strain on the healthcare system.

Countries such as Ireland are looking to South Korea for lessons about best practices in containing the coronavirus outbreak. Much of South Korea's success, shaped by lessons learned from battling the MERS outbreak in 2003, comes from implementing the national infectious diseases control act that "allows for the government to track people, and for the tracking information to be posted online."

After learning of the first cases of coronavirus that weren't contracted by direct exposure or from foreign travel, officials in Washington took quick and strict measures to start introducing social distancing, which may have helped slow the transmission. Although the hospitals are low on supplies, they have not yet been "overrun," indicating that modeling and widespread testing, along with limiting human-to-human interactions and gatherings, were all beneficial parts of the strategy to slow the spread.