COVID-19: learning from experience
The Lancet
Published:March 28, 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30686-3
Over the past 2 weeks, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has marched relentlessly westward. On March 13, WHO said that Europe was now the centre of the pandemic. A few days later, deaths in Italy surpassed those in China. Iran and Spain had also reported over 1000 deaths as of March 23, and many other European countries and the USA reported increasing numbers of cases, heralding an imminent wave of fatalities. Following the sweep of COVID-19 is a series of dramatic containment measures that reflect the scale of the threat posed by the pandemic. Lockdowns that seemed draconian when instigated in Wuhan only 2 months ago are now becoming commonplace.