Coronavirus: Five countries that claim to have flattened the COVID curve

31 days into the lockdown, all eyes are on India’s COVID-19 curve. On Thursday, ICMR’s Dr. Raman R Gangakhedkar in a press conference said, “Positivity rate has been 4.5% throughout, one can say we have been able to flatten the curve. However, difficult to predict it (peak): We have been able to flatten the curve”. Flattening the curve simply means slowing the infection rate. A slower infection rate removes the stress on the healthcare system.

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Here are a few countries that seem to have flattened the curve: 

CHINA: China had hit a peak with over 5,000 cases daily in February, but then started flattening the curve from February 18. It took two months to flatten the curve after the first cluster was reported on December 31, 2019.  

HONG KONG: Hong Kong saw its first confirmed case on January 23. It went through two waves of the outbreak, one in January and one in March. On April 20, Hong Kong reported no new cases.  

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NEW ZEALAND: It took New Zealand just a month to flatten the curve due to the early implementation of a lockdown. The country had reported its first case on February 28 and went into lockdown on 24 March. It is now reporting less than 10 cases per day on an average.

GERMANY: On April 9, the German Health Minister Jens Spahn announced the curve was flattening in the country. The country’s recorded a low number of cases for three weeks. It has a recovery rate touching 90%. 

SOUTH KOREA: The first detected case of COVID-19 was on 20 January. The country saw its peak on 29 February when it reported 909 cases. On 9 April, just 64 cases were reported, indicating it took 3 months for South Korea to truly flatten the curve.

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