Question about spread of cv

[disappointed101]

I apologise in advance, science was never my strong point. Why are different countries in different stages of the pandemic.? We are seemingly past the peak but other countries like in South America are not. Why does it not spread through the world equally and what causes all the lags in different countries?

Two causes

1. When the first cases got to that country that they didn't manage to contain - so when it started

2. When they imposed lockdown - which in most countries has slowed transmission down.

If we didn't have lockdowns/social distancing the disease would have spread much more widely and only burned itself out once most people had it, but there aren't any countries that are doing that. So those further into their epidemics aren't really any closer to it dying down naturally, they're just further into lockdown (except maybe China and New Zealand who seem to be managing to wipe it out completely)

Thank you for explaining! That makes sense.