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STUDENT'S MAGAZINE \

Thailand is another country that has done a fairly good job of tracing. The number of infected people
continues to grow but not very fast, and also the number of recovered cases is continuously increas-
ing. The reason why the rate of infection has decreased is because of the government’s declaration
of preventive measures. Most of the cases first appeared in Bangkok, so the preventive measures at
first only covered Bangkok. Travel outside of Bangkok has been restricted, and department stores or
places that are crowded have been closed until further notice.

The USA was one example of a country that was slow in testing the Coronavirus, causing the
number of cases to rise very rapidly. It has since ramped up testing, but too late to track and
trace with any great effect.The United States still doesn’t have any strict universal instruc-
tions for their citizens to follow. Mostly, the government has just given recommendations.
Americans to wash their hands and quarantined themself, which is not enough to calm the
people down. With the number of people who have COVID-19 still rising very fast, it by
mid April had more deaths than any other country. On the other hand, Germany is a coun-
try that can test a vast number of people within a short period(around half of a million tests
a week). Moreover, Germany also has an application where doctors would be able to use the
system by getting permission from those who test positive and putting their information
into a central server to remind those people who are close to the patient that someone who
has tested positive is nearby.

The UK is also another country that was slow in testing leading to a massive
amount of people infected. It has wanted to test, but has been unable to procure
enough tests. It seems to have been caught in between the plan to test and an
alternative plan called “herd immunity or community immunity.” Herd immunity
happens when so many people in a community become immune to an infectious
disease that it stops the disease from spreading. This can happen in two ways:
Many people contract the disease and, in time, build up an immune response to
it (natural immunity). Many people are vaccinated against the virus to achieve
immunity.

After the outbreak of this new coronavirus had been declared as a pandemic, many coun-
tries around the world started to prepare their health systems to cope with this virus. Gov-
ernments in each country tried to prioritise decreasing the infection rate, maintaining
healthcare systems and managing the economy..

Different countries have had different ways to deal with the current pandemic. We still
don’t know which method will in the long run will prove to be the best. There are a lot of
factors which influence how and whether or not the country should implement certain
measures. For example, availability of resources, how critical the situation is, the size of the
population, the politics and culture of a country To flatten the curve, various countries be-
gin to quarantine, use social distancing measures, etc. because avoiding infection is a key
to ensuring that healthcare systems are able to cope with the virus during the outbreak.
Countries, like China, Germany and South Korea, have implemented differing measures
and done a great job in flattening the curve. Other than flattening the curve, many coun-
tries have had to increase the health system capacity to prepare for the increasing number
of patients by providing hospital beds, ventilators and oxygen for those who can no longer
breathe on their own.

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