Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Developing Countries: Lessons from Selected Countries of the Global South
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Responding to the COVID‑19 Pandemic in Developing Countries: Lessons from Selected Countries of the Global South Anis Z. Chowdhury1 · K. S. Jomo2
© Society for International Development 2020
Abstract Reviewing selected policy responses in Asia and South America, this paper draws pragmatic lessons for developing countries to better address the COVID-19 pandemic. It argues that not acting quickly and adequately incurs much higher costs. So-called ‘best practices’, while useful, may be inappropriate, especially if not complemented by effective and suitable socio-economic measures. Public understanding, support and cooperation, not harsh and selective enforcement of draconian measures, are critical for successful implementation of containment strategies. This requires inclusive and transparent policy-making, and well-coordinated and accountable government actions that build and maintain trust between citizens and government. In short, addressing the pandemic crisis needs ‘all of government’ and ‘whole of society’ approaches under credible leadership. Keywords COVID-19 pandemic · Contagion · Precautionary measures · Herd immunity · Containment measures · Lockdown · Physical distancing · Contact tracing · Health systems After the first outbreak in China in late 2019, COVID-19 initially seemed to bypass much of the Global South, especially sub-Saharan Africa, perhaps reflecting the contribution of passenger air travel to its uneven global spread. Nevertheless, the fear of the contagion’s devastating impacts in developing countries continues to grow (Malley and Malley 2020; Faiola et al. 2020; Muggah and Florida 2020; Porras 2020; Wolf 2020). On 30 January, when there were 7818 confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission, with the vast majority in
China, and 82 cases in 18 countries outside China, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated the COVID-19 outbreak a ‘public health emergency of international concern’ (PHEIC), raising the global risk of the outbreak to ‘high’ and for China ‘very high’, its highest alert level.1 The WHO declared COVID-19 a ‘pandemic’ on 11 March when there were more than 118,000 confirmed cases and 4,291 deaths in 114 countries.2 On 31 March, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General described the COVID-19 crisis as the greatest collective 1
* Anis Z. Chowdhury [email protected] K. S. Jomo [email protected] 1
School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
Khazanah Research Institute, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2
When a PHEIC is declared, the WHO Director-General issues temporary recommendations under the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), including obligations for countries to provide sufficient public health rationale and justification to WHO about any additional measures beyond what the WHO recommends. This is critical to ensure the international response is evidence-based, measured and balanced, so that unnecessary interference with travel and trade is avoided. The WHO also recommended that the global commun
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