Ecological comparison of six countries in two waves of COVID-19

Front Public Health. 2024 Feb 28:12:1277457. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1277457. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study is to provide experience and evidence support for countries to deal with similar public health emergencies such as COVID-19 by comparing and analyzing the measures taken by six countries in epidemic prevention and control.

Methods: This study extracted public data on COVID-19 from the official website of various countries and used ecological comparative research methods to compare the specific situation of indicators such as daily tests per thousand people, stringency index, and total vaccinations per hundred people in countries.

Results: The cumulative death toll in China, Germany and Australia was significantly lower than that in the United States, South Africa and Italy. Expanding the scale of testing has helped control the spread of the epidemic to some extent. When the epidemic situation is severe, the stringency index increases, and when the epidemic situation tends to ease, the stringency index decreases. Increased vaccination rates, while helping to build an immune barrier, still need to be used in conjunction with non-drug interventions.

Conclusion: The implementation of non-drug interventions and vaccine measures greatly affected the epidemic prevention and control effect. In responding to public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 epidemic, countries should draw on international experience, closely align with their national conditions, follow the laws of epidemiology, actively take non-drug intervention measures, and vigorously promote vaccine research and development and vaccination.

Keywords: COVID-19; containment strategies; ecological comparison; mitigation strategies; non-drug interventions; vaccination measures.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19* / epidemiology
  • COVID-19* / prevention & control
  • Emergencies
  • Epidemics*
  • Humans
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Vaccines*

Substances

  • Vaccines

Grants and funding

This research was funded by Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Project of Guangdong Province in 2023: Research on the mechanism of national voluntary epidemic prevention behavior based on Repast-fsQCA in the context of COVID-19 “Class B and B control”, grant number GD23CGL11, and Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province in 2022: Construction and application of COVID-19 control model PSR-SOR-Haddon in Guangdong Province, grant number 2022A1515011112.