03/14/2020
This is one of the most insightful articles we've read on Corona virus and detailed information on how 5 countries have effectively managed it. Covid-19 is not Singapore’s first epidemiological nightmare. In 2002 and 2003, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, the original SARS, tore out of China and through Asia, killing 33 people in Singapore and sparking wholesale revisions to the city-state’s public health system. “They realized they wanted to invest for the future, to reduce that economic cost if the same thing were to happen again.” Singapore instituted strict travel controls and protocols for identifying sick individuals—to get them help as well as to find the people they’d been in contact with. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea instituted strict social distancing measures, like canceling events, closing schools, and telling people to stay home. As a result (at least in part), they “flattened the curve,” as public health experts now say—lowering a probable spike of infections, perhaps pushing that surge of seriously ill people further out in time so that health care systems don’t get overburdened.
After SARS and H1N1, Singapore built a robust system for tracking and containing epidemics. South Korea, Taiwan, and others did too—here's what they learned.
