Despite containment in China, international response against the coronavirus has been lagging, at the expense of human lives and economic damage. On March 8, when I submitted my previous column, I argued that the Philippines faced a game-changer in virus spread. As confirmed cases in China now exceed 80,000, those outside China are climbing closer to that level. Outside China, the early cases were first reported after mid-January, but there has been no turnaround. The strategy that underpinned the Chinese containment effort started as a national approach, which pushed hard for universal temperature monitoring, masking and hand washing.

Source: Manila Times March 15, 2020 23:13 UTC