This whole #coronacrapola has been awful in every way, shape and form. But from a sociological point of view, it’s been kind of interesting to see how each country has handled the pandemic.
Countries that had to deal with SARS and MERS not too many years ago generally seemed to be much better prepared.
Places that shut down very early are seeing much better outcomes right now.
Countries that were initially doing horribly for whatever their reasons have done what’s necessary and have improved considerably.
Countries with leaders who tend to ignore experts and like to do things their own ways seem to be doing worse.
Countries that we suspected of lying probably do about their numbers, too.
And it makes you wonder if the general order of how countries are doing in terms of controlling COVID-19 will be the order than open up first? I think maybe, maybe not.
This website has been keeping track of how roughly half of the countries in the world are doing with their response to the pandemic. They’ve been doing it since February and the page is updated every 3 to 7 days.
The countries are divided into 3 categories:
- Green – “winning’
- Yellow = “nearly there”
- Red = “needs action”
Green
These are the countries that are doing well. They may or may not have had high levels of cases to begin with, but they did what they had to do to ensure their numbers dropped ASAP. Shut their borders. Quarantined. Gave a unified message. etc. They include the first country in Southeast Asia to increase its number of domestic flights (and that’s had an airline with a coronavirus guarantee), and the first country to eliminate the virus. They’re countries that are seeing new cases, at worst, in the very low double digits, if not the single digits or zero, per day.
Yellow
These are the countries that are almost there, but not quite.
Most of the countries marked “yellow” have new cases in the triple digits, although some are in the double digits and others are in the quadruple digits. The latter are countries that started with a very high amount of cases to begin with. I mean, when you used to have 220,000+ cases and now only have 1100 new cases per day, it’s still bad but not as bad as it had been. But they still have a ways to go; that’s why they’re yellow.
Red
And then we have the red countries. Lots of cases in the past, lots of new cases now, very slow trend of less cases, still with a trend of more cases, you name it. They definitely don’t have a handle on controlling the virus and are just as mess.
How their “colors” could relate to tourism
Countries that have few cases would look mighty appealing to open their doors for tourism. But should they? Until we have a worldwide handle on the virus, with proper testing, treatment and the all-important vaccine, letting people from other countries in could potentially open the door for “green” countries to get more viruses. This is the same mindset that Hawaii and the Florida Keys have had and frankly it’s worked for them. Same reason why this county and its neighbor are looking at a reciprocity deal not necessarily visitors from the outside.
Several countries in the “yellow zone” are European. If they continue to progress at a relatively equal pace, the area’s plan for tourism this summer may work out well for them.
As for the red countries, many don’t rely on tourism, but even if they decided to open up for economic reasons, people would be foolish to visit them at this time.
#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
