National responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

National responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have been varied, and have included containment measures such as lockdowns, quarantines, and curfews. As of , cases of COVID-19 have been reported, resulting in reported deaths. The most affected countries in terms of confirmed cases are the United States, Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa, Peru, Mexico, Chile, the United Kingdom, and Iran.

Lockdowns

The pandemic has caused worldwide curfews and similar restrictions ( stay-at-home orders, shelter-in-place orders, shutdowns/ lockdowns) established to prevent further spread of COVID-19. The pandemic has resulted in the largest amount of shutdowns/lockdowns worldwide at the same time in history. By 26 March, 1.7 billion people worldwide were under some form of lockdown, which increased to 3.9 billion people by the first week of April — more than half of the world's population.

, nearly 300 million people, or about 90 per cent of the population, are under some form of lockdown in the United States, more than 50 million people are in lockdown in the Philippines, about 59 million people are in lockdown in South Africa, and 1.3 billion people are in lockdown in India.

Africa

Ghana

The first two cases of COVID-19 was confirmed on 12 March 2020, when two infected people came to Ghana; one from Norway and the other from Turkey.
On 11 March, President Nana Akufo-Addo directed the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, to make the cedi equivalent of $US100 million available to enhance Ghana's COVID-19 preparedness and response plan. The Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund was also initiated to aid in the fight against the pandemic.

Bans and lockdowns

On 15 March, at 10 pm, President Nana Akufo-Addo banned all public gatherings including conferences, workshops, funerals, festivals, political rallies, church activities and other related events to reduce the spread of COVID-19 at a press briefing on the state of COVID-19. Basic schools, senior high schools and universities, both public and private, have also been closed. Only BECE and WASSCE candidates were permitted to remain in school under social distancing protocols.
The use of Veronica buckets have become very popular in Ghana following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus as citizens engage in frequent hand washing to stem its spread.
On 30 March, the partial lock down of Accra and Kumasi took effect. In April 2020, At a press briefing, the Director General of the Ghana Health Service, announced the commencement of local production of nose masks as part of efforts to arrest the spread of the pandemic. According to the new Executive Instrument, E.I. 164, signed by the President on 15 June 2020, people who refuse to wear face masks in public could face jail terms of between 4–10 years or a fine of between GHS12,000 (approx US$2,065) and GHS60,000 (approx US$10,320) or both would be made. This came after the mandatory wearing of nose masks

Government responses

From 3 April, over 464 markets were disinfected across the country.
The second phase of nationwide fumigation begun in July. On 23 September, the MoE with GES collaborated with Zoomlion received a COVID-19 AI software for detecting the virus on Chest X-rays.
Government also relaunched the GH COVID-19 tracker app after it was launched on 13 April.
Various treatment centers were built across the country such as the Ghana Infectious Disease Centre,
to help in the National COVID-19 Treatment.
Ghana became the first country to use drone aircraft in the fight against the pandemic through the transport of COVID-19 test samples.

Namibia

On 17 March President Hage Geingob declared a state of emergency as a legal basis to restrict fundamental rights. The prohibition of large gatherings was clarified to apply to 50 or more people. Measures such as the closure of all borders, suspension of gatherings were implemented. All public and private schools were also closed for a month. By 14 April, a National lockdown was enforced to all regions in the country.

Access to information and surveillance

A COVID-19 communication hotline [phone]) was established on 15 March 2020 which is run by the Ministry of Health and Social Services and the Centre for Disease Control of Namibia (CDC). The hotline serves to answer general enquiries of the public, assisting persons seeking guidance from the Ministry and reporting possible symptoms or cases of COVID-19.

The Government also announced on 18 March that it will strengthen their communication to the public via various platforms, such as the COVID-19 communication centre operated by NBC, in an attempt to "mitigate and refute misinformation, fear and panic especially from social media". The centre was fully functional by middle April 2020.

With the establishment of a multi-disciplinary Emergency Response team, the Ministry intensified their surveillance in monitoring the situation of COVID-19 in the country, especially at the borders of Namibia. The response team operates 24/7.

Testing

Before the confirmation of COVID-19 in Namibia, tests could not be done locally. Test samples were instead sent to South Africa, which accounted for longer than usual waiting times. Namibian Institute of Pathology (NIP) started testing locally in Windhoek at the end of March 2020. In late April, private laboratory PathCare started testing samples. Namibia was hit by a lack of reagents at the end of April, which slowed down testing however, private testing at PathCare was expensive compared to that of the state (NIP) which offers free COVID-19 tests.

Economic stimulus package

An Emergency Income Grant was set up by government to distribute N$ 750 to every person whose income was affected by the pandemic or faced difficult conditions due to the lockdown. Over 800,000 people applied for this grant; 346,000 of them were paid by the end of April.

South Africa

President Cyril Ramaphosa declared that South Africa would undergo a national lockdown, for a period of 21 days, from 26 March to 16 April 2020. This drastic measure was intended to help keep the viral infection rate as low as possible and save lives. On Thursday 9 April, President Ramaphosa announced an extension of two weeks to the lockdown, until the end of April. Exempt from the lockdown are people deemed necessary for the effective response to the pandemic such as health workers, pharmacy and laboratory personnel, emergency personnel,
security services, supermarkets, transportation and logistical services, petrol stations, banks, essential financial as well as payment services and those working in industries that can affect the economy when shut down. This include mines and steel mills.

Testing

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) started testing people in South Africa for SARS-CoV-2 on 28 January 2020, and by 7 February had conducted 42 of such tests. State hospitals were offering free COVID-19 testing by mid-March.
On 30 March 2020, the government announced its intentions of initiating an enhanced screening and testing programme.
By the start of April, 67 mobile testing units had been established and people had been tested, some in drive-through facilities.

Clinical trials, vaccines, and treatment

On 17 March 2020, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority announced that it would expedite review of treatments, vaccines and clinical trials.
A team from 8 universities and 14 hospitals led by Helen Rees and Jeremy Nel from the University of the Witwatersrand participated in the World Health Organization Solidarity Clinical Trials that investigated medications.
A COVID-19 vaccine trial was launched in Gauteng province, towards the end of June 2020 in collaboration with the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford and AstraZeneca.
A second vaccine trial was launched during mid August 2020 in collaboration with a US Maryland based biotechnology company, Novavax, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A third vaccine trial was launched in September 2020 by Johnson & Johnson/ Janssen.

Other countries and territories

* Algeria
* Angola
* Benin
* Botswana
* Burkina Faso
* Burundi
* Cameroon
* Canary Islands
* Cape Verde
* Central African Republic
* Chad
* Congo, Democratic Republic of the
* Congo, Republic of the
* Djibouti
* Egypt
* Equatorial Guinea
* Eritrea
* Eswatini
* Ethiopia
* Gabon
* Gambia
* Guinea
* Guinea-Bissau
* Ivory Coast
* Kenya
* Liberia
* Libya
* Madagascar
* Malawi
* Mali
* Mauritania
* Mauritius
* Mayotte
* Morocco
* Mozambique
* Niger

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases