WHO Says Coronavirus Containment Still Possible
"They actually changed the course of a respiratory-borne outbreak without a vaccine, which was extraordinary," says Aylward. The number of daily new cases in China went from around 2,000 just a few weeks ago to less than 100 in recent days.
But Aylward says other countries may be taking the wrong lesson from China by attributing its success to the government's unprecedented restrictions on daily life in several cities, most famously Wuhan, the city of 11 million people where the outbreak began.
"China has 31 provinces, thousands of cities," notes Aylward. "And it was only a few cities where they took those draconian measures. In the vast majority of them, they ... really went back to fundamentals of public health."
These included ensuring that there was enough testing capacity to quickly identify cases, isolating infected patients, tracing anyone who had contact with them and, when necessary, placing those contacts in quarantine facilities so they wouldn't get infected by the sick person or spread the disease further. Also, in places where clusters of cases were emerging, authorities prohibited mass gatherings.
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...it's crucial not to rely on restrictions of movement as the sole remedy. Public health authorities need to be prepared for a rebound in cases when movement restrictions are lifted and cases start to tick up again.