Upward trajectory or flattening curve? This is how countries are faring with COVID-19 cases

As the coronavirus spreads rapidly around the world, several countries seem to be moving along a similar upward trajectory. According to numbers by Johns Hopkins collected by the website Worldometers, case counts in the U.S. and Germany have been growing at similar rates since hitting 100+ cases, which happened on March 1 in Germany and March 2 in the U.S.

Italy, where there are currently more than 40,000 cases and public life has shut down, hit 100 cases on February 23, about a week earlier than Germany and the U.S. as well as France.

Case counts in Spain sadly accelerated and hit almost 18,000 on Thursday - meaning that cases numbers are right now higher than in Italy when the country was in the same stage of the outbreak that Spain is in now.

Some good news came out of France. The country which is currently under an extended lockdown seems to have started to "flatten the curve". The country hit 100 cases on February 29 and recorded just over 11,000 cumulative cases on Thursday.

Some other countries can also hopefully still swing into the trajectory South Korea took. Currently, the Asian country has the eighth most confirmed cases of the coronavirus after China, Italy, Iran, Spain, Germany, France and the U.S. Widespread free testing (including the now infamous drive-thru testing), quarantine measures and the harnessing of mobile technology for public information have amounted to an effective campaign to slow the spread of the virus. The country hit 100 cases on February 20 and managed to leave the steep upward trajectory around 14 days later. Yet, European countries and the U.S. have failed to introduce rigorous testing and quarantine measures as soon as South Korea did.