4 Lessons to Learn from Countries That Are Successfully Beating COVID-19

As nations around the world are still fighting and recovering from the effects of the coronavirus disease, humanity now faces the challenge of creating a future that’s better equipped to handle outbreaks. Different nations took different approaches to control the spread of COVID-19 and to provide medical assistance to patients and other affected individuals. To date, some countries have had more promising results than others in their response and enforcement of life-saving protocols, especially in the medical sector.

The question is, what can we learn from them? What lessons can we take into serious consideration so that we can confidently look ahead as a global community united against COVID-19?  Below are four of the most important lessons for global citizens wishing for a swift end to the COVID-19 crisis.

Take Early and Systemic Action

One country that others around the world can learn from is Taiwan. Taiwan’s previous experience with the 2003 SARS epidemic has played a significant role in the nation’s response to COVID-19. After hearing about the highly contagious new virus from Wuhan, they acted fast to establish the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC). Having past experience with the control of dangerous pathogens such as SARS-CoV-1 strengthened Taiwan’s cultural stances on the importance of wearing face masks and social distancing. In other countries such as Japan and Korea, wearing face masks has long been a common practice even before the people were required to do so during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are some simple, but effective lessons that can be from Taiwan as well as their Asian neighbors Japan and Korea. If an individual can follow public health recommendations such as self-isolation, wearing face coverings such as an antimicrobial face mask, and practice regular hand disinfection, the better their chances of keeping infectious diseases such as COVID-19 out of their lives.

Have a Collective Mentality

Confucianism, a cultural philosophy that puts the needs of society over individual needs, can explain how some Asian nations responded successfully to COVID-19. In Vietnam, people generally hold the mentality that they have to wear face masks to protect other people, just in case they are carriers. This is on top of the fact that a Southeast Asian country like Vietnam, following its contemporaries in East Asia, has curtailed visitor arrivals and performed contact tracing in the early stages of the pandemic. In Hong Kong, anti-China protestors also suspended many of their rallies and other public activities when virus cases rose. This kind of collective mentality has had a visible effect in controlling the spread of COVID-19 and in helping to flatten the curve.

There are also countries where Confucianism is not the dominant cultural philosophy, but the belief to put the good of society first before the good of an individual is still very much evident. In such countries, the effects of the pandemic have not been as bad as in the countries with failed COVID-19 responses. Within a week of the Malaysian government declaring a lockdown, for example, most Malaysians immediately complied with the order. And even when stay-at-home orders were lifted, people continued to wear masks to protect each other and not just to protect themselves.

Listen to Science

The voice of the scientific community has been indispensable in the effort against COVID-19. The fact that scientists from all over the world are collaborating to find answers, even in light of religious and political divides, is a testament to their effort to serve the public and set aside their personal interests.

In a time where fake news and political propaganda plague the information stream, science should be revisited as a reliable source of information to make better decisions, especially in critical situations like that of a global pandemic.

Some nations that have weathered the pandemic relatively well because they have listened to science are New Zealand and Taiwan. Their evidence-based communication of the risks, costs, and benefits to the overall population is a key contributor to their ability to control the virus.

Invest in Better Health Infrastructure

Although South Korea experienced a large initial outbreak, its efforts to contain the virus quickly proved effective due to the government’s longstanding initiative to improve its health care system. The nation didn’t just focus on providing access to health resources, but it also made sure that people used them.

Hundreds of “walk-in” testing booths were provided all across the country. The South Korean government also took a big data approach to conducting contact tracing, even working with cellphone carriers to retrace the steps of infected people using their location data.

South Korea is another country that improved its diagnostic testing from a previous outbreak—that of MERS in 2015. Understanding the importance of immediate action, South Korea enlisted the help of private companies and was soon running 10,000 tests daily, unlike the US which relied solely on testing kits from the CDC.

Takeaways on Global Efforts to End COVID-19

While nations are closing off their borders, it’s the scientists and researchers that are going borderless. Technology and the Internet have made it much easier for researchers to simultaneously focus on a single topic, and with such urgency.

With that said, there’s a lot of data to support how better healthcare, collective thinking, quick systemic action, and stronger support for science and technology can provide us with a better blueprint for mitigating the effects of infectious diseases. May we learn the lessons we need to so that we can beat COVID-19 as one global community, and so that we can be better prepared for any future health crisis that will affect the generations to come.