No country has eliminated the coronavirus. But containment is possible. Public health strategies are the roadmap.

The US knew the playbook, we just opted to ignore and delay.

a THREAD: how these other countries bent their curves, saved lives and got back some sense of normal...

South Korea — ramped up mass testing early and aggressively with a nat'l effort including a public-private partnership with commercial labs, a high-tech plan for contact tracing, and drive-thru test sites. SK had 13k total cases by April 1, and just 3k more in the next 5 months

Germany — clear, consistent public health messaging from political leaders helped unify its 16 governors behind a national testing and tracing program. After it saw a peak of 6k new cases on one day April, Germany has averaged well under 1k new cases all summer

Italy — hit hard early on and criticized for its slow response, Italy saw a peak of 1k deaths/day in March. After implementing strict lockdown and public health measures across the country, by mid-June it had <50 deaths per day. Children are returning to school this fall

Vietnam — Despite a weaker health care system than many of its neighbors in the region, Vietnam (pop. 95 million) has recorded just 1,000 total cases and 35 deaths since the outbreak began. It put in place strict quarantine measures and aggressive contact tracing early.

Greece — it acted fast and early on social distancing orders, banning all non-essential movement nationwide before it had 100 total cases. Greece (pop. 11 mil) reopened much of daily life in early May, including a partial reopening of schools. To date it's recorded <300 deaths

New Zealand — near the end of Feb, with just a handful of cases it implemented extreme lockdown measures. By April, new cases of the coronavirus were down to single digits. By June it had no active cases and no new cases. Today daily life is nearly back to a pre-pandemic normal

Iceland — its national testing program not only made tests accessible and free, but gave them to everyone, symptomatic and asymptomatic alike. Iceland’s cases began to decline in April. Since, new cases haven’t risen above 20 in a day. It entirely avoided an economic shutdown.

Taiwan — within 3 weeks of news of the outbreak, Taiwan marshaled a pandemic response that followed a 120-point action plan including a national health insurance database that updated doctors with the latest info. From April 8-July 22, Taiwan didn’t record a single new case.

Czech Republic — one of the first in Europe to make mask-wearing mandatory. It banned non-essential movement when it only had 22 new daily cases in March. In May it started lifting most of its restrictions. It's recorded <400 total deaths.