“People say the COVID disaster in America has been about a denial of science. But what we couldn’t agree on is the social compact we would need to make painful choices together in unity, for the collective good,” Bitton added. “I don’t know whether, right now in the U.S., we can have easy or effective conversations about a common good. But we need to start.” [...]
That mattered when the coronavirus began spreading early last year. At the time, Bhutan looked like a ripe target. It had only 337 physicians for a population of around 760,000—less than half the World Health Organization’s recommended ratio of doctors to people—and only one of these physicians had advanced training in critical care. It had barely 3,000 health workers, and one PCR machine to test viral samples. It was on the United Nations’ list of least developed countries, with a per capita GDP of $3,412. And while its northern frontier with China had been closed for decades, it shared a porous 435-mile border with India, which now has the world’s second-highest number of recorded cases and fourth-highest number of reported deaths. [...]
Bhutan then went further. At the end of March, health officials extended the mandatory quarantine from 14 to 21 days—a full week longer than what the WHO was (and still is) recommending. The rationale: A 14-day quarantine leaves about an 11 percent chance that, after being released, a person could still be incubating the infection and eventually become contagious. Bhutan’s extensive testing regimen for people in quarantine, Wangmo added at a press conference, was “a gold standard.” [...]
Fourth, draw on existing strengths. When Bhutan added five more PCR machines to its testing stock, up from just one, it needed people to collect samples from the field and operate the devices. So it shifted technicians from livestock-health and food-safety programs, and trained university students. When it became clear that one ICU physician was not enough, it instructed other doctors and nurses in clinical management of respiratory infections and WHO protocols. “This is the lesson from Bhutan,” Rui Paulo de Jesus, its WHO country representative, told me. “Utilize the resources you have.”
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