"The mentioned governments, ranging from Slovenia to Iceland, took early action by closing borders, instructing the population to stay home, testing and tracking, isolating the sick, promoting social distancing and preventative measures such as wearing masks, and ensuring honest communication with the public. These measures have curbed the number of infections and deaths, and allowed the reopening of schools and businesses and the return to a sense of normality in everyday life. Some of them now report that there are no new cases of disease or death," Vox reports.

The achievements of these countries are also impressive given the huge differences between them. Greece is a member of the EU, which is a global hotspot, but has avoided the worst despite being a tourist country. Vietnam has a large border with China and limited financial resources, but has also managed to avoid a major outbreak.

The small dimension of the outbreak in Slovenia is also impressive, since this is a growing tourist destination bordering one of Europe's outbreak epicentres, i.e. Italy.

"Its success is mainly due to early closure, the introduction of quarantine and generous government spending. The first case was detected on 4 March and it took Slovenian officials about two weeks to close schools and businesses and stop public transport. For this purpose, the government has earmarked a sum of three billion euros, representing 6% of national GDP, for citizens and businesses to survive the closure," said Vox.