Lessons learnt from easing COVID-19 restrictions: an analysis of countries and regions in Asia Pacific and Europe
Open accessAbstract
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global crisis. Many countries have implemented restrictions on population movement to slow the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and prevent health systems from becoming overwhelmed; some have instituted full or partial lockdowns. However, lockdowns and other extreme restrictions cannot be sustained for the long term in the hope that there will be an effective vaccine or treatment for COVID-19. Governments worldwide now face the common challenge of easing lockdowns and restrictions while balancing various health, social, and economic concerns. To facilitate cross-country learning, this Health Policy paper uses an adapted framework to examine the approaches taken by nine high-income countries and regions that have started to ease COVID-19 restrictions: five in the Asia Pacific region (ie, Hong Kong [Special Administrative Region], Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea) and four in Europe (ie, Germany, Norway, Spain, and the UK). This comparative analysis presents important lessons to be learnt from the experiences of these countries and regions. Although the future of the virus is unknown at present, countries should continue to share their experiences, shield populations who are at risk, and suppress transmission to save lives.
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Environmental factors such as seasonality, natural disasters, environmental degradation, public health infrastructure, and governance affect overall disease burden for society.
“Although there is evidence that environmental factors such as seasonality, other natural disasters, environmental degradation, quality of the public health infrastructure, or governance by state authorities have an impact on overall disease burden for society (Han et al., 2020)”
From COVID-19 and the human innate immune system (2021) · cites this paper as Han et al., 2020
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- Authors
- Han, E., Tan, M. M. J., Turk, E., Sridhar, D., Leung, G. M., Shibuya, K., Asgari, N., Oh, J., García-Basteiro, A. L., Hanefeld, J., Cook, A. R., Hsu, L. Y., Teo, Y. Y., Heymann, D., Clark, H., McKee, M., & Legido-Quigley, H.
- Affiliations
- National University of Singapore (SG)
- University of South-Eastern Norway (NO)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
- King's College London (GB)
- Seoul National University (KR)
- Robert Koch Institute (DE)
- London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (GB)
- ORCID
- Venue
- The Lancet
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-11
- Volume
- 396
- Issue
- 10261
- Pages
- 1525-1534
- ISSN
- 0099-5355 (ISSN-L)
- 0140-6736
- PMC
- PMC7515628
- OpenAlex
- W3088841725
- Cited by
- 814
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 50 · 2024: 83 · 2023: 131 · 2022: 196 · 2021: 298 · 2020: 41 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 6.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Lancet (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- LSHTM Research Online (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) (acceptedVersion)
- Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Singapore Ministry of Health's National Medical Research Council
- Centre Grant Programme—Singapore Population Health Improvement Centre (NMRC/CG/C026/2017_NUHS)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Modeling and Simulation › COVID-19 epidemiological studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › COVID-19 Prevention and Impact
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Legal, Health, Environmental and COVID-19 Challenges
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, easing restrictions, lockdown, pandemic policy, Asia-Pacific region, Europe, high-income countries, transmission suppression, vulnerable populations, health policy
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, Commerce, Communicable Disease Control, Europe, Asia, Eastern, Health Policy, Humans, New Zealand, Pneumonia, Viral, Coronavirus Infections, Pandemics
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