The world did enough to respond to the coronavirus

ALLALI Mohamed
LLCER L1 Grp 8

The world is doing enough to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

In December 2019, a new disease emerged from China, this new and deadly virus named Covid-19, is part of the coronavirus type. This pandemic took the world by surprise, and hastily enough, the whole world saw a new era and a new crisis. But some countries responded differently from one another, few of them responded fast and immediately sought to find a suited response, and others, the majority of the world, responded too late or weren't prepared, and have seen disastrous consequences. And that's what will see today ; which countries reacted fast and how, which countries reacted slow and how did they make up for it, and what we can hope to do to change while finding an effective solution.

First of all, what should a country do when something this big happens ? Well, we could ask New Zealand, which still is today, the country who reacted the best out of ther others. Only a few days after the first cases of Covid-19, all borders were closed, gatherings prohibited. But that's not the reason why New Zealand managed to beat the virus. In fact, only after a few days, the leaders of this country decided to make a drastic and critical decision : instead of limiting the spread of the virus, they decided to directly eliminate it. An alert level 4 happened in March, a country lockdown. That's how, in only a month, New Zealand only had 2 dozen virus cases. But are strict methods really the way to go ? Well not really, for example, Japan and Sweden drastically reduced the cases by using forbearing methods. In fact, Sweden didn't even need a lockdown, they managed to keep their economy going, by reducing capacity in restaurants and businesses, while closing some high schools and universities. However, some countries didn't eradicate the virus because of their fast reaction time, but because they had similar situations before. Singapore as a matter of fact, was hailed as the first “winner” against Covid-19, because it learned a lesson from the SARS epidemic from 2002 to 2004. Singapore spent a fortune in response to Covid-19, establishing the most rigorous measures known in the world ; it rolled out a plethora of nationwide actions, like a mass campaign on hygiene, and on safety standards from companies, showing only 28 deaths. Other countries reacted aggressively to the virus, for instance, South Korea, in only a few weeks, managed to develop Covid-19 tests, and scaling up their production to thousands-per-day, they also helped other countries by shipping tests and supplies abroad, doing all of this when their toll was way below a hundred. But South Korea did all of this because its economic resources are considerable compared to other countries, and just like Singapore, the country already faced another similar situation earlier in the decade : the MERS epidemic in 2015, which resulted in only 500 deaths.

Unfortunately for the world, the countries who reacted best to Covid-19 are only part of a minority of nations. Other countries had, and still have disastrous death tolls and economic crises. The most notable example being the United States of America. But, the US has one of the biggest economy worldwide, so how did they bungle so bad ? Well, the main reason is, like everywhere else, politics. The now ex-President Donald Trump, had one of the worst reactions to the outbreak of Covid-19. His decisions and responses were, well, not very effective at all ; he recommended hydroxychloroquine as a cure, despite it being shown  non-effective, he refused to wear face mask, and he ignored most of the World Health Organisation's advices.Resulting in more than 8000 deaths in the last 7 days, and 262 000 deaths in total. The next country who maybe reacted worse than the United States, is Brazil, because, in fact, Brazil didn't react at all. Current President, Jair Bolsonaro, didn't organize any defense against the pandemic, regarding it as a, I quote, “little flu”. No precautions were taken, the medical advices were immediately ignored and denied, and, to this day, no lockdown has been initiated nationwise. The President even joined “anti-lockdown” protests in the capital, this lack of reaction resulting in over a 170 000 deaths, though the numbers are suspected to actually be a lot higher, due to delays in testing.In spite of every precaution forseeable, a country didn't manage to keep its numbers down. However, these countries weren't the ones with the worst response to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Belgium had the worst reaction to the pandemic. By using factors like obesity, population over 65 and international arrivals, Belgium ranked last with a rating of 2.11, which is considered in this case, as a “poor” threshold. But it wasn't the contamination rate or the daily increase of cases that gave that low score, but it was in fact, the death rate per capita. During this already pending crisis, Belgium had its share of controversy. Cases of overcounting deaths, negligence from the bureaucracy, and general lies from politicians, claiming Belgium as the country with “the most detailed method” in all of Europe. Even though it had a somewhat good response, for example extending the deadline of social security contributions, or suspensions of the tax payments. They also had good ideas, like allowing pharmacists to manufacture and distribute disinfectants. But why is the recorded death toll so high in Belgium ? Well, Belgian officials admitted to counting deaths in a particular and totally different way than other countries : they are counting death in care homes, hospitals, but also suspected deaths that are yet to be confirmed are from Covid-19. Even after all that, they managed to keep a 42% occupancy rate in hospitals as of today, and are also beginning to lift lockdown measures.

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