Open AccessCOVID-19 – A Tale of Two Cities: Seattle and Vancouver
Author(s) -
Ben Y. F. Fong,
Vincent Law
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
asia pacific journal of health management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2204-3136
pISSN - 1833-3818
DOI - 10.24083/apjhm.v15i3.455
Subject(s) - covid-19 , pandemic , per capita , geography , publishing , socioeconomics , economic growth , project commissioning , tourism , history , political science , economic history , demography , sociology , archaeology , outbreak , law , disease , economics , infectious disease (medical specialty) , medicine , virology , population , pathology
The coronavirus pandemic has been affecting many countries in the world over the past six months. Nowhere sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Precautionary measures, lockdown, as well as control of crowd gathering and movement have been implemented by all governments, with the sacrifice of economic activities. It is interesting to review how things were happening in North America where the United States has been hard hit by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), scoring over two million confirmed cases and about 120 thousand deaths at the top of the list of the world. Canada ranked eighteenth with about 100 thousand cases and just about 8 thousand deaths. Both the cases and deaths per capita are lower in Canada, which shares the same border and similar culture with the United States. Seattle and Vancouver have some of the highest incomes and educational levels in both countries. These two West coast cities are only 200 kilometres apart and are near the U.S.-Canada border. They are selected for this review to study the different approaches in managing the COVID-19 pandemic.