The Importance of Testing
Many have recalled that in a global pandemic situation like the one we are living, testing is key to contain the outbreak. As for many other aspects of Coronavirus spread, the nations took often different stands with respect to testing and it is interesting to compare which approach paid out the most. Our World In Data is an amazing source of information and provides a data base accessible to everyone; I isolated in below charts a few countries that adopted different approaches.
Based on the information available as of today, I personally rank the results of the countries represented in the chart in their fighting of Coronavirus as:
Poor: United States, United Kingdom
Average: France, Italy, Sweden
Good: South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore
Excellent: Taiwan
It is interesting to note some facts:
- A big number of tests did not protect Italy, that is as of today the European country that had the biggest number of deaths.
- Within the set of countries above, Taiwan executed the smallest number of tests per 1000 people. Moreover, the country borders with China, where the outbreak originated, and remained substantially open until today. Although it can be argued that, as Taiwan did not test much, it is normal that official Coronavirus cases numbers are small, I still find their results amazing.
With some co-workers, we are getting organized to reach out to a broader community of our colleagues and encourage social interactions while we are all stuck at home. We still have months of working from home ahead and we are concerned that the team spirit may fade away. I will be in charge of a newsletter where we will recommend movies, books and TV series hoping this will sparkle exchanges and help making the time spent at home more enjoyable. We will also roll out an initiative to stimulate people to exchange cooking recipes and pictures of their delicious meals. I hope this will help me to relax and focus on something else than work, from time to time.
Living Colors Studio 