In the wake of the coronavirus crisis, more and more governments are imposing lockdown on their countries: This includes some states in America, France, Italy, the UK, the State of Israel, Jordan and the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The World Health Organization has warned against public gatherings.
In the West, many countries have heeded their advice. In Great Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the best present one could give to one's mother on Mother's Day was to stay away. In the State of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed Israelis not to meet friends and family. Even the Israeli Ministry of Health guidelines warn Israelis not to visit their grandparents. These days in the Jewish state, people can get fined for going to the beach or holding political protests.
However, others further to the east are more reluctant to shut down their countries, as the West is presently doing. When the coronavirus reached Iran, the mullah's government initially ignored it and refused to do anything to fight against it because the outbreak originated in the holy city of Qom and they did not want to quarantine religious figures. As a result, over 1,100 Iranians have died from the virus. The coronavirus is literally destroying the Islamic Republic of Iran and the number of deaths keeps rising.
Undeterred by the coronavirus, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina voted in an election surrounded by people and not wearing a mask.
Shipan Kumer Basu, the President of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, declared: "Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a public curfew to save the people from the coronavirus, but in Bangladesh, they are busy with an election and thus allowed many flights from the UK, US, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The reality is that the Bangladeshi government is hiding the effects of the coronavirus."
Yet, one must ponder, is there a middle road for confronting the coronavirus that does not entail ignoring this critical public health issue like Iran and Bangladesh are doing or waging a complete lockdown as in Israel? After all, the South Koreans have managed to curb back the virus outbreak via extensive testing and quarantining sick individuals, without implementing an economically destructive lockdown.
Is the lockdown the best way to fight the coronavirus? South Korea may provide answers. Many people who claim that a lockdown is the best way to stop the coronavirus look to China. They point out that now there are no confirmed new cases of coronavirus in Wuhan, the Chinese city from which the deadly virus originated.
South Korea successfully managed to go from having 900 new coronavirus cases per day to a case rate in relative decline. According to British media reports, as of March 19, the country has conducted more than 307,000 tests, the highest per capita in the world. Michael Mina, assistant professor at the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard University, proclaimed: "[South Korea's] extensive testing is a very valuable tool to both control the virus and understand and measure the effectiveness of the responses that are taking place. It's allowed individuals to take matters into their own hands and make social distancing decisions on their own, both to protect those around them and to protect themselves from those who are infected around them."
For example, in South Korea, individuals receive a cellphone notification whenever someone with the coronavirus approaches them so that they can physically distance themselves. In this way, the rest of the population does not need to distance themselves from other healthy people.
Furthermore, knowing who a carrier of the deadly virus means that the healthy population in South Korea was able to benefit from not having draconian measures imposed upon them.
The lesson in all of this is that we should learn from the South Korean model and just invest in extensive testing while strictly quarantining sick Israelis.
As Israel Hayom reported, an unnamed Israeli Health Ministry official told Channel 12 News that shutting down the economy was the wrong move: "This is the wrong concept. We have to bring the economy's output back up to speed without delay, while people who have contracted [the coronavirus] must be quarantined and treated. The damage this [a shutdown] will cause to the livelihood of a million Israelis will be far greater," he said.
Rachel Avraham is a political analyst at the Safadi Center for International Diplomacy, Public Relations, Research and Human Rights.
