Gates Package — page 910

'control. Another example: The data suggests that cross-border traffic between countries was responsible for a fair amount of transmission. So we can look for places that managed it well. For example, early in the pandemic, Uganda required COVID tests for all truckers coming into the country, and a regional agreement in East Africa followed suit soon after. But because the testing process was slow and kits were in short supply, the policy caused major backups at the border--of up to four days--and transmission went up while truckers waited around in cramped quarters. Uganda and its neighbors did several things to fix the logjam--including dispatching mobile testing labs to border crossings, creating an electronic system to track and share results, and requiring truckers to get tested in the country where they started their route, rather than at the border.3 Soon, traffic was flowing again, and cases were kept under control. <~?~Insert art 010_Gate_9780593534489_art_r1> Naliku Musa, a truck driver at the border between Uganda and South Sudan, waits for the results of his COVID test. Bottom line: In the early days, if you're able to test a large share of your population, isolate the positive cases and their contacts, and handle possible cases coming from abroad, you'll be well positioned to keep the caseload manageable. If you don't do those things quickly, then only extreme measures can prevent a large number of infections and deaths. 2. Some countries show us what not to do. I don't like to dwell on failures, but some are too egregious to ignore. Although there are positive exemplars, most countries handled at least some aspects of their COVID response