After months of lockdown, countries around the world are beginning to ease the lockdown restrictions put in place to curb the coronavirus spread.
Several countries in Europe have recently begun to reopen, including Germany, Denmark, Norway, the Czech Republic, and Poland, though many have warned that the process will be slow and closely monitored.
Australia is among the countries beginning to ease its lockdown, though each of its six states and two territories has its own social distancing rules in place. Australia has a population of about 25 million and has recorded 7,045 cases and 98 deaths as of May 17. Its number of coronavirus cases per day has been largely decreasing since early April and has seen less than 50 new cases per day since April 17.
On May 5, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison met with state and territory leaders and agreed that the country would begin to lift lockdown restrictions in stages with the goal of establishing "a sustainable COVID-19 safe economy in July 2020," though he stressed that each state would be able to move at its own pace.
Each Australian state and territory is coordinating its reopening with the federal government, but easing its restrictions based on the situation locally. For example, the Northern Territory, which has only recorded 29 cases and zero deaths, began reopening national parks and allowing outdoor activities on May 1. The state of Victoria, on the other hand, has reported over 1,500 cases and 18 deaths and began gently easing its restrictions on May 13.
Seeing the successes of other countries in stemming the virus, the US is also eager to jumpstart its economy, and several states are set to reopen in the coming weeks. As of May 15, Georgia, South Carolina, and Montana have lifted restrictions, and others including Texas, Maine, and Illinois have partially reopened. Several states, including Arkansas, Iowa, and Nebraska, never issued statewide stay-at-home orders.
But experts have warned that reopening too quickly could see a resurgence of the virus in a second wave, a particular concern for the US which has seen over 1.4 million coronavirus cases and more than 89,000 deaths across its 50 states. The number of new US daily cases remains in the tens of thousands, and recent projections indicate that some states have not yet passed their peak.
While Australia and the US are both looking toward the future, one leading health policy expert told Business Insider that Australia has taken a drastically different approach to fighting the pandemic, which puts Australia at an advantage to fight off a potential second wave of infection.
Dr. Lesley Russell is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy and a non-resident fellow at the United States Studies Centre in Sydney Australia. She previously served as a senior adviser to the US Surgeon General in the Department of Health and Human Services under the Obama administration, and also as a health policy adviser to the Australian Labor Party.
She broke down four major differences between the Australian and the US coronavirus responses:
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