The world is currently under the attack of a highly contagious virus known as

the Coronavirus. This deadly virus has affected a whopping total of 1,015,466
people living on the surface of the Earth (as of 3rd April 2020). The ground zero
of the outbreak is Wuhan located in the Hubei province China. Although, at the
start, the virus only stained a small part of this big world, it has now proven to
be highly infectious because it has now become a raging pandemic that has
taken more than 50,000 lives around the globe. Lots of people may question:
“How did it get this bad?” and “Is there any way to stop it?”. The answer to
that question is a simple yes but the application of that is far from simple. The
countries of the world cope to the virus in different ways but they can be
classified into 3 main methods: total lockdown, encouraging physical
distancing and closing down a few things. Of course, these methods aren’t
always sure-fire because there are multiple factors contributing into the
application of it.
The first method is total lockdown. This means that the people aren’t allowed
to go outside their house and are forced to stay indoors. This method is
applied by a handful of countries like China and Italy but this method doesn’t
always guarantee a successful containment of the outbreak. We can see the
weight to this statement when we observe how successful a country is in
applying the method. An example of a country with a successful lockdown is
China. The sleeping giant, or China, is successful because it has both a powerful
economy to sustain the people and also a dominant government. Countries
like Italy aren’t successful in the lockdown because they’re government isn’t
dominant enough and so cannot force their citizens to stay inside (even though
it has a sustainable or rich economy.) we can see the result of the failure in
executing the lockdown when we notice that Italy, although not as big as the
others on this list, is in the top 3 countries with the most number of
Coronavirus cases.
The second method used to cope with the virus is physical distancing. This is
applied by a multitude of countries such as South Korea and Indonesia. The
difference with lockdown is that physical distancing is more of a strong
suggestion than a command. It’s also unlike a lockdown because some offices
are still allowed to operate but most public places and areas (like schools) are
closed down for a while. South Korea tried applying physical distancing to cope
with the outbreak and has done a good job in doing so. South Korea also pairs
the physical distancing with a lot of rapid tests to make sure everyone infected
is quickly quarantined. This worked well for them possibly because South
Korea isn’t as big as other countries that have applied this method.
The third method is quite similar to physical distancing and is applied to
countries like the USA. This method can be said as a less strict form of physical
distancing. The difference between this method and the aforementioned
physical distancing is the fact that staying home or quarantine is only applied
for schools. Offices aren’t closed down so people are still working and
compacted into one building. This isn’t as effective of a method when
compared to the other two. Although the younger percentage of the
population are generally kept safe at home, the older population are
susceptible to the virus and may also cause further infections as there may be
people already infected in close proximity. The counterproductive results of
the route taken by America in dealing with the virus can be seen through the
comparison of country’s using other coping mechanisms. China, the country
that is supposedly in the eye of the storm, has chosen lockdown and is lower in
the list of confirmed Coronavirus cases. South Korea, the country who at one
point had the most confirmed cases, had also quickly suppressed the number
and now has a relatively low number of cases when compared to America.
Country’s around the world are giving their best efforts in hopes of containing
the virus and cleaning the mess it made. The ‘cleaning’ they do has many forms
and ways. They have different degrees of success to it too meaning that we can
never be sure of way is best to use. As the above paragraphs have mentioned,
methods are only effective when paired with the right circumstances, situation
and also co-operation among the citizens. One thing’s for sure though, and it’s
that though our ways differ, we’re working towards the same goal which is to
get the world back to its tip-top-shape and through all our efforts, things will
surely look up eventually.