Читать книгу COVID-19 and Risk - Alaszewski Andy - Страница 17

In West Africa, health care resources and technology are limited. However, countries such as Senegal saw COVID-​19 as an Ebola-​type threat and responded rapidly. As soon as the WHO declared COVID-​19 an international emergency on 30 January, the Senegalese developed contingency plans (Shesgreen, 2020). When two individuals tested positive in March 2020, the President immediately increased social distancing by imposing a curfew and by restricting travel inside the country. At the same time, testing capacity was increased with test results within 24 hours. The government promised that every person who tested positive would get a treatment bed, reducing the risk that they would transmit the virus. Dr Boussa, director of the Emergency Operations Centre, said: ‘We saw at the beginning that if you did that [isolate those testing positive], we could very rapidly stop the transmission of the virus’ (Shesgreen, 2020).