Abstract
Disruption of the public health systems was an inevitable result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which put governments under severe pressure to make quick decisions in response to the policy challenges they faced. The virus created a state of confusion not only among countries and their governments but also across other organizations, including the international community and its organizations. Cross-country learning by sharing experiences and tacit knowledge was one critical approach for governments across the world to learn from and to follow, since the pandemic requires a deeper understanding of policy processes to be able to face those challenges. This chapter, therefore, focused on the ‘policy' implications of different countries' responses, with a special focus on WHO policies and guidelines and how they have been used and adapted in different contexts. The overall aim was to draw lessons for governments and organizations to strengthen the public health system during and post COVID-19 and any future pandemics.
TopBackground
Since 2020, governments around the world have had to make radical and system-level decisions to protect people from the novel coronavirus. Different types of social and public health measures have been introduced and implemented worldwide, such as social distancing, self-isolation, travel restrictions, lockdowns and quarantines, imposing the use of PPE and some IPC measures, and other several policies and interventions (WHO, 2020). Unarguably, cross-country learning, transferring successful policies and practices in emergency situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic are useful. Yet, the questions remain on what interventions or measures, or practices should each country use? Should the same policies and practices be replicated in countries, or should they be adapted to each country context? What is successful in one country, at a specific time within certain settings can be transferred to another country at a different time and different settings and yields the same outcome or not? Are there different actors involved in these transfer process and if any, what are the role? – and many other questions.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Lockdown: The active restriction and control of the movement of people by governments.
Quarantine: The process of isolating and restricting the movement of potentially exposed or infected people.
Contact Tracing: The process of identifying people who might have come into contact with an infected person.
Tracking: Monitoring the spread of infection across locations.
Policy Transfer: A process in which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions, etc. in one time and/or place is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, and institutions in another time and/or place.
Testing: Using medical procedures to confirm a diagnosis in individuals suspected of having a disease.