What have Tajikistan and Turkmenistan done right to completely avoid the Corona Virus illness?

[samueljohnson]

So whilst almost the entire world of full of Corona Virus there are a very few countries that have had zero cases still. Two of these are Tajikistan and Turkmenistan which still today have zero cases. This is despite their surrounding countries all having many cases (and some having huge numbers of cases) such as, Afghanistan, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, which are all heavily infected. So my question is what are Tajikistan and Turkmenistan doing right? How do these two countries both still have zero cases of the Corona Virus there? What can the rest of the world learn from these two countries? Is anywhere currently there or been there recently or has any idea how these two countries have both managed to completely avoid getting any cases?

[cycleourworlddotcom]

They're probably lying or just not testing anyone

[levelo]

Testing and non-reporting aside, I think it has to do with the fact that these 2 countries are less internationally linked to the outside world than their neigbors.
Fewer cases because less businessmen and less tourists ( at least as far as Tajikistan is concerned, especially in the late winter when the pandemic hit globally and the stream of visitors was very low ).
Turkmenistan shut its borders tight early on.
Afghanistan seems to have more cases, especially in Kabul ( the presidential compound being the worst hit ).

[Christian77]

As noted above: relative isolation from the rest of the world. An airport in Europe sees more arrivals in two weeks than Tajikistan does in an entire year. So it's not unreasonable that they don't get hit early. Also, some of the early restrictions helped - Tajikistan blocked Chinese flights and travellers at an early point or sent them to quarantine while the Iranian military, for example, continued to run it's commercial aviation operation in and out of China non-stop because they were making so much money from it.

Isolation is not just stopping foreigners from entering, but also relates to how restricted your own citizens are from travelling. Turkmenistan is a big open air prison. Its citizens often can't leave even if they have a visa waiting at the other end. And Tajikistan, they can really only travel to a small list of countries. And when a Tajik travels, it's usually one trip to spend a season or a year elsewhere studying or working. You don't see a lot of globetrotting Tajiks who visit multiple countries regularly. It's super hard for Tajiks to get visas to visit other countries. So...more isolation.

But now it has arrived in Tajikistan (their isolation only delayed it). The government is just lying about it. They say it's TB or H1N1 or regular pneumonia (what Russia was doing a month ago). But nobody believes that. Based on other countries, in about 2 weeks Tajikistan will no longer be able to pretend. But perhaps 'the leader' may choose to acknowledge it at an earlier point (e.g., in order to appeal for international aid).

[bwv812]

Despite their relative isolation, both Turkmenistan and Tajikistan have also been susceptible to contacts that originated in Iran, and progressed via Afghanistan (over 200k refugees returned to Afghanistan after Iran's outbreak). Obviously Turkmenistan has a direct border with Iran, but it was closed earlier and I have the impression they paid more attention to it than their southern border.