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We @YDLMalaysia will be sharing our work on The Impact of Covid-19 lockdown & MCOs by key countries. Follow thread. We shall start with China.
China is the only major country that has managed to bring down the number of new cases to very low levels based on official figures. This was achieved by a strict implementation of lockdown that went beyond the level practiced in Europe and elsewhere.
Lockdown was only eased 60 days after it was first imposed, at the time when the number of new cases were practically zero. In fact, near-zero level was achieved around 2 weeks prior to the easing of the lockdown, but the strict measures remained intact.
Lessons learned from China, its premature for other countries to lift movement restrictions currently in place until the benchmark seen in China has been reached in order to avoid future outbreaks. Photo: @YDLMalaysia
South Korea containment without lockdown:
South Korea managed to control its outbreak via containment & contract tracing w/out the need for lockdown measures.
South Korea managed to control its outbreak via containment & contract tracing w/out the need for lockdown measures.
While this analysis focuses on the impact on movement restriction, it would be beneficial to study how the outbreak phases panned out in South Korea and what other countries can learn from it.
Also note that unlike China where new cases tend to hover around a single or two-digit, SK to date stabilizes at around 100-case mark which it will continue to manage in preventing it from exploding to a new peak. Photo: @YDLMalaysia
This may well be the outcome for other countries, which further suggests the importance of continuous efforts to contain the spread and not to let our guards down when the worse may appear to be behind us.
Countries currently under movement restrictions:
While the United States is the worst-affected country to date, there is still limited timeframe available to analyse its lockdown impact as the country continues to exponentially grow in new cases.
While the United States is the worst-affected country to date, there is still limited timeframe available to analyse its lockdown impact as the country continues to exponentially grow in new cases.
Therefore, we shall not be looking at the United States for comparison and focused our benchmark towards 4 key European countries with nationwide restrictions.
Italy, once worst-hit country behind China during its peak, have started to show positive signs from the lockdown around 3 to 4 weeks after it was first implemented in the north.
With the latest day-on-day exponential growth at around 5% and total case of over 115,000 as of Apr 2, the number will still continue to rise in large numbers, but it does seem to be moving in the right direction towards a gradual recovery.
Spain seems to be around 1 or 2 weeks behind Italy in terms of the pace of recovery. There appears to be a first sign of a shift in the past few days but it may still be early to conclude that the nationwide State of Alarm is driving total cases down.
France is in their third week of lockdown where the first sign of a turn may be on the horizon as in the case of Spain, but more time is needed before an fair assessment can be made.
UK is relatively behind in imposing a strict movement restriction. After nearly 2 weeks of implementation an upward trend in daily cases with an exponential growth of above 13% is still being observed.Neighbouring countries may take a week or 2 before signs of a + effect observed
Msia is currently in 2nd week of MCO. It appears that number of new cases is heading towards a stabilizing trend, more time needed to assess if the restrictions imposed by the government are having a significant impact on the number of new cases. @threadreaderapp unroll.
