The Coronavirus, one of the biggest health risks known to the world. Every country is dealing with it in their own way, but is their method of coping right or wrong, and what are they doing to slow this virus down?

CHINA

China’s response to the virus was not a total lockdown of the country. For example, the city of Wuhan was affected the worst so the Hubei province that Wuhan is in was locked down. Very aggressive contact tracing, testing and isolation measures were put in place. This really helped control the virus and brought and the number of infections down to single figures. The measures have been very successful and some of the restrictions are being lifted now.

NEW ZEALAND

On the 26th of March New Zealand went into lock down, just a few days after introducing the elimination strategy, despite not having that many cases. The elimination strategy is really helping control the amount of cases in New Zealand, but how? Well, New Zealand managed to get a grip on the virus before too many people got it. They are regularly testing people, and telling anyone with symptoms to contact everyone they have seen in the last fortnight, immediately. Even though New Zealand have reportedly not had that many cases, that is not stopping them from doing what they need to do to prevent the spread. New Zealand are really doing a tremendous job of keeping this virus under control, by only letting emergency and essential flights in and out of the country. They are also working on an app which could really help and benefit other countries as well - this app is going to be able to see who has the coronavirus and where they are spreading to. If this app is a hit it could be strategically how we move forward in the future.

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SWEDEN

Sweden - you may be wondering what they are doing to slow down the spread of the coronavirus? Well Sweden has taken a very different approach to this global pandemic, doing the opposite to what most other countries are doing. Schools, offices, restaurants, shops all still remain open, and as for public gatherings, they are still permitted as long as there are no more than 50 people. Their day-to-day life hasn’t changed as drastically as ours has in the UK, though the elderly and vulnerable in Sweden are pretty much sticking to the same regime as us here in the UK. The people of Sweden have been trusted to handle this in their own way, by watching where they are going and what they are doing, even though shops, offices, restaurants and schools still remain open.

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AMERICA

Every state in America has done something different because there has been no federal response across the whole country, however the USA has more infections than the rest of the world put together. Some of the bigger states like New York and L A are in lockdown, which is very needed, though some of the republican states like Oklahoma are either not in lockdown or in social distancing. At this time in America, temperatures are rising, meaning not a whole lot of social distancing is taking place and there have been sightings of over a thousand people at beaches in some states, making it very easy for a lot of people to get infected. Donald Trump has suggested that you should inject washing up liquid into your body as cure, but really it is very dangerous for human health. There have been measures put in place to help stop the spreading, though the fact that these type of statements are coming from the person who is in charge of the USA means the response is very confused.

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UK

The UK was quite slow to lockdown the union, but finally went into lockdown on the 24th of March. Initially, they looked at herd immunity, which would have meant that they would have just let the infection run. Soon, however, the UK decided it would be safer for vulnerable people to self-isolate, and shortly after that the union went into lockdown. The UK has been very slow to test large numbers of people and has not put any contact tracing in place. The country has the 4th worst infection rate per million in the world and, overall, the approach hasn’t been too successful. However, again, like New Zealand, only emergency or esential flights are coming in and out of the UK, and social distancing is taking place.

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Nobody Knows what the future holds, though we do know that life is going to be a lot different than it used to be.

Stay home everyone, and stay safe!