Abstract
This article highlights the main aspects of Jordan's public health response in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, it briefly describes the main characteristics of the pandemic waves. Although Jordan has successfully implemented various stringent control measures at the early stage of the pandemic which resulted in a slow pace of COVID-19 spread in the country, the dramatic and sudden surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths since September 2020 raises many concerns and questionable debates regarding the effectiveness of Jordan's COVID-19 mitigation strategies, the earlier epidemiological surveillance process, decision-making and decisions' execution at various sectors, as well as the degree of commitment to precautionary measures among the general population. Jordan has passed through three distinct pandemic stages so far, and each stage provides lessons that can be used to improve the national preparedness and response plan in the future. This pandemic has afflicted most life domains; thus, sharing the responsibility and efforts between the government and people in combating it, is expected to be more efficient and effective than a one-sided response. Pandemic fatigue can act as a major risk factor for losing such a battle. The people of Jordan have been already through an unforgettable 2020 year that impacted them physically, emotionally, and even financially. Therefore, reliable actions should be considered by the decision-makers to provide sufficient support for the society. Also, strengthening the government-public partnership is a cornerstone for a successful, solid, and effective public health response, especially in times of an exhaustive pandemic crisis like the COVID-19.
Highlights
This article highlights the main aspects of Jordan’s public health response in combating the COVID-19 pandemic
There was no ground of evidence that the government or decision-makers have effectively utilized the early period of the pandemic control (March –August 2020) to enhance the capacity of the Jordanian healthcare system, especially Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds, ventilators as well as the health workforce, and this could have serious impacts during the real pandemic waves
During this pandemic wave, decision-makers were too willing to catch up with what they missed in the period of March–August 2020, and more serious steps were declared in late October 2020 to enhance the health system capacity by constructing field hospitals designated for COVID-19 cases, alongside recruiting healthcare workers to support the existing health workforce, creating some hope to improve the epidemiological situation in Jordan by learning it the hard way [17]
Summary
It has been over a year since the initial outbreak of Coronavirus Disease – 2019 (COVID-19). In line with other countries, a total lockdown with a nationwide curfew was declared and enforced by laws [2]. These initial measures have led to a slow pace of COVID-19 spread in the community which can be confirmed by the publicly declared statistics on the COVID-19 plat form provided by the Jordanian Ministry of Health Since March 2, 2020, which was the date of the first reported case of COVID-19 in Jordan, and as of April 04, 2021, the epidemio logical trend has posed three distinct stages so far (See Fig. 1).
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