COVID-19: Lessons from the frontline

The global spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) within a 12-week period had countries globally grappling to meet the demands of the unknowns of this pandemic. Health-care systems have been reeling with demands placing it in a critical state to meet the needs of the population. As of August 6, 2020, 18.8 million cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed worldwide of which 11.3 million (60.1%) recoveries and 706,000 deaths, with 216 countries of active cases. The countries reporting more than 1 million confirmed cases are United States, Brazil, and India. The United States exhibits the lowest proportion of recovered patients (49.4%) compared to Brazil and India, each with 70% of confirmed cases recovered. India has the lowest percentage of confirmed cases who died (2.1%). On January 10, the 10.13039/100004423World Health Organization (WHO) issued an advisory to all nations to prepare for a novel virus now known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 causing severe respiratory disease, which had been reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The call was for countries to revise their influenza plans and identify gaps, conduct risk assessments, and plan for investigation, prevention, and response in the event the country experiences an outbreak. On January 30, the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a public health emergency of international concern meaning that there was the potential of global transmission of the virus. On March 11, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic as COVID-19 was being reported by almost all countries.