How one little-known country 'escaped' the COVID-19 pandemic

For more than one year the world has been struggling against the pandemic caused by Covid-19. Schools, businesses, and sports venues have at times been ordered to close. Millions of people were told to stay home.

At the time this was being written, there had been over 120 million cases worldwide. This has resulted in more than 2.7 million deaths. Yet, there is one rather unknown country that has managed to evade the worst of the outbreak.

How has a small, relatively poor country managed to avoid what other so-called first-world countries did not?

The who, what, where, and why of Laos

Located in Southeast Asia is a land-locked country called Laos. Much of the world pronounces the name as it looks ie 'louse', however, most locals will drop the s that their French colonists added and say they come from Lao.

There is a landmass of over 220,000 Km2 which is nearly the same as the UK and yet the population is only around 11% standing at about 7,300,000.

This low population compared to the large land area may be one of the keys to Laos' success in fighting Covid.

Before Covid started to spread around the world, Laos was one of the fastest-growing economies. By May 2020 the unemployment rate was up to 25% and has risen even further as tourism and other businesses have been hit.

Currently, Laos stands at only 115th out of 167 on the Legatum Prosperity Index, and yet they have managed to contain outbreaks that more prosperous countries have failed to do.

How has Laos escaped Covid seemingly so easily?

At the current time, Laos has seen 49 cases of Covid with 45 recoveries and 0 deaths. There are other places in the world with fewer cases such as the Vanuatu Islands but their population is a fraction of Laos'.

Laos now holds two distinctions. One is that the country is the most bombed on earth per capita and the other is that it has less Covid, also per capita than anywhere else.

• Strict quarantine procedures

As soon as the first case was discovered in Laos' tight quarantine policy was initiated. When designing quarantine strategies the mean and standard deviation is used to show MLE. By using standard deviation and the mean medical professionals can then calculate how likely it is that patients need to be incubated for more than the standard 14 days.

Standard deviation can show what is the minimum length of time that is needed for a majority (99%) of patients to reveal symptoms.

Laos imposed a quarantine on a number of people who had socialized with a person who tested positive. A party was held in a small residential area and one person then developed symptoms. The neighbors who attended the party were taken to quarantine and through this strict measure, everyone stayed free of symptoms or recovered without spreading the disease further.

• Strict border controls

Travel was limited almost instantly in Laos. Whereas other countries dithered on their policies, Laos decided to halt tourism and general travel swiftly. This may have been influenced by the country bordering China where the coronavirus initially emerged.

Whatever the reasons for closing the borders so quickly were, it clearly had a big effect. As new strains of the Covid virus are appearing such as the UK and South African variants, Laos remains largely free of the virus.

• Travel restrictions within the country

It seemed during last year you couldn't look at a news site without seeing a story about someone flouting travel restrictions or social distancing rules. MPs in England, politicians in the USA, and other highly known faces decided that they were above these restrictions.

Clearly, traveling freely across a country that is on lockdown is to risk spreading the infection. There was no risk of this happening in Laos as Provinces and towns were cut off from each other and blockades erected. Armed police and the army blocked roads and prevented anyone from traveling outside of their own areas.

As the population in European countries protested against a lack of freedom the Lao people seemed to accept this as a necessary, short-term inconvenience that would be worth it in the long run.

• Laos has a small population

For all the restrictions that were brought in, there is also the way the country is laid out to consider. From a population of just over 7 million, there are about 1 million living in the capital, Vientiane. The rest are spread between the tourist towns of Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang, and other cities such as Savannakhet and Pakse.

There are relatively no tower blocks or hi-rise buildings save for hotels and offices and people are not densely packed as they would be in New York or London.

It is highly likely that the very nature of Laos has helped stop the disease from spreading. Nearly all cases of Covid have been discovered in Vientiane which is close to the Thai border. One other case was reported in the north close to the Chinese border.

• Vaccination policy

It remains to be seen how well Laos will do with the next step on the road to recovery. While other countries are rolling out vaccinations with the UK have already given the first dose to 28 million people other countries are flagging. Google is opening vaccination centers and providing millions of dollars in support but countries with poorer economies are far behind.

As of now, Laos has vaccinated just over 40,000 people with medical and frontline staff a priority. The risk is that after avoiding so much of the pandemic a flawed vaccination program could once again put its people at risk once the borders reopen.

Can Laos keep this momentum going?

The geography of the country may also pose a problem. At the end of 2020, there was a government initiative to have every person register their SIM card. There are no mobile contracts in Laos, everyone uses pay-as-you-go. This was put back to May 2021 as logistically it proved almost impossible to reach people living in rural areas.

The country's population consists of a number of different ethnicities and tribes. The physical geography of Laos is at times very mountainous and there are villages hidden away behind these karsts.

There are very few news reports in Laos. Some newspapers carry limited stories from the country and its neighbors but there are no TV or radio stations. People rely on the internet and Thai TV channels to keep up with what is happening in the world. For now, the country is receiving help from COVAX and vaccines are arriving. How they will be administered is the question.

Summary

Laos imposed strict rules on group gatherings, internal travel, and border control and achieved an incredible rate of success. They created a quarantine strategy using mean and standard deviation to ensure negative test results before allowing patients to go home. But, the fear is that even with all this hard work could be reversed.

For a country that was poor, to begin with, and was then hit very hard during the last year they may not have the means to implement a successful vaccination plan.

(Devdiscourse's journalists were not involved in the production of this article. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)