Following the emergence and rapid spread of COVID-19, several countries have succeeded in bringing local outbreaks under control. The most dramatic of these is China, where large scale restrictions on people’s movement appear to have halted domestic transmission.
South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan also had early success containing local outbreaks, using a combination of extensive contact tracing, testing, border measures and differing degrees of social distancing.
WATCH: Wuhan reopening after their eight-week lockdown. Post continues below.
However, COVID-19 is now widespread across the globe, and these countries remain at risk of a second wave of infections, sparked either by overseas arrivals or undetected pockets of infection.
As China has begun to lift travel restrictions, the world is watching to see whether they can avoid a second wave of outbreaks.
What causes a second wave of a disease outbreak?
Infectious diseases spread via contact between infectious and susceptible people. In the absence of any control measures, an outbreak will grow as long as the average number of people infected by each infectious person is greater than one.
If people who recover generate a protective immune response, the outbreak will leave a growing trail of immune people. Once enough people are immune, there are fewer susceptible people to become infected and the outbreak will die away.
Top Comments
If Australia successfully eradicates the disease, then we will be able to avoid a second wave by screening out infected travellers to Australia. If a reliable, quick diagnostic test is developed and becomes readily available then it could be done at the airport when travellers check in or at the dock when the cruise ship arrives. Most countries won't have anything like herd immunity and will be discouraging travel too.
The borders need to stay shut until the virus burns out globally. It may be possible to open limited exceptions, say across the Tasman once both of us have achieved virus free status.
The information from China and its WHO spokespeople can’t be trusted. China stopped all travel from Hubei to other parts of China on 23 Jan, but disturbingly allowed international travel to continue to and from there. At the time the WHO was praising Chinas leadership and advising that there was no need for us to shut our borders. They even advised there was no firm proof of human to human transmission and criticised nations like Australia and the US for closing our borders.
Taiwan, who wasn’t having a bar of anything put out by the Chinese Ministry of Information, began health screening passengers from Hubei in November and consequently has done probably the best of any country in handling this.
This is now 3 pandemics from China in 20 years, when will their Government clean up its act?