Konishi, T. A Comparative Analysis of COVID-19 Response Measures and Their Impact on Mortality Rate. COVID 2024, 4, 130–150, doi:10.3390/covid4020012.
Konishi, T. A Comparative Analysis of COVID-19 Response Measures and Their Impact on Mortality Rate. COVID 2024, 4, 130–150, doi:10.3390/covid4020012.
Konishi, T. A Comparative Analysis of COVID-19 Response Measures and Their Impact on Mortality Rate. COVID 2024, 4, 130–150, doi:10.3390/covid4020012.
Konishi, T. A Comparative Analysis of COVID-19 Response Measures and Their Impact on Mortality Rate. COVID 2024, 4, 130–150, doi:10.3390/covid4020012.
Abstract
(1) Background: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected worldwide, with varying responses implemented to control its spread. This study aimed to compare the epidemic data compiled by the World Health (2) Methods: Organization to understand the impact of the measures adopted by each country on the mortality rate. The increase or decrease in the number of confirmed cases was understood in logarithmic terms, for which logarithmic growth rates “K” were used. The mortality rate was calculated as the percentage of deaths from the confirmed cases, which was also used for logarithmic comparison. (3) Results: Countries that effectively detected and isolated patients had a mortality rate 10 times lower than those that did not. Although strict lockdowns were once effective, they could not be implemented on an ongoing basis. In fact, after their cancelation, large outbreaks occurred because of medical breakdowns. The virus variants mutated with increased infectivity, which impeded the measures that were once effective, including vaccinations. Although the designs of mRNA vaccines were renewed, they could not keep up with the virus mutation rate. The only effective defence was steadily identifying and isolating patients. (4) Conclusions: These findings have crucial implications for the complete containment of the pandemic and future pandemic preparedness.
Keywords
keyword logarithmic growth rates; lockdown; vaccination; containment of the pandemic; identifying and isolating patients
Subject
Public Health and Healthcare, Health Policy and Services
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.