Fouda Ayman, Mahmoudi Nader, Moy Naomi, Paolucci Francesco
Management Center Innsbruck, Austria.
University of Newcastle, Australia.
Health Policy Technol. 2020 Dec;9(4):510-524. doi: 10.1016/j.hlpt.2020.08.015. Epub 2020 Aug 28.
This paper aims at providing an overview of the COVID-19 situation, health policies, and economic impact in Greece, Iceland, New Zealand, and Singapore. The four countries were chosen due to their ability to contain the spread and mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on their societies.
We use document analysis based on the available national reports, media announcements, official coronavirus websites and governmental decrees in each of the four countries starting from the 1st of January o the 9th of August announcements. We apply a policy gradient to compare and examine the policies implemented in the four countries.
The four countries have different demographic, epidemiological, socioeconomic profiles but managed to control the pandemic at an early stage in terms of total number of positive cases. The four countries managed to absorb the health system shock and decrease the case fatality ratio of COVID-19. Early interventions were crucial to avoid expected life lost in case of no early lockdown. The pandemic triggered several economic stimulus and relief measures in the four countries; the impact or the economic rebound is yet to be fully observed.
We conclude that early, proactive and strict interventions along with leveraging previous experience on communicable diseases and the evolution of testing strategies are key lessons that can be synthesized from the interventions of the four countries and that could be useful for a potential second wave or similar pandemics.
本文旨在概述希腊、冰岛、新西兰和新加坡的新冠疫情形势、卫生政策及经济影响。选择这四个国家是因其有能力控制新冠病毒传播并减轻其对本国社会的影响。
我们基于这四个国家自1月1日至8月9日期间可获取的国家报告、媒体公告、官方新冠病毒网站及政府法令进行文献分析。我们运用政策梯度来比较和审视这四个国家实施的政策。
这四个国家的人口统计学、流行病学、社会经济状况各异，但在阳性病例总数方面均在早期成功控制住了疫情。这四个国家成功应对了卫生系统冲击并降低了新冠病毒的病死率。早期干预对于避免在未实施早期封锁情况下预期的生命损失至关重要。疫情在这四个国家引发了多项经济刺激和救济措施；经济反弹的影响尚未得到充分观察。
我们得出结论，早期、积极且严格的干预措施，以及借鉴以往传染病经验和检测策略的演变，是可以从这四个国家的干预措施中总结出来的关键经验教训，可能对潜在的第二波疫情或类似大流行有用。
