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Lessons learned from the Baltic countries’ response to the first wave of COVID-19

The Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania shared a similar response to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the information available on the COVID-19 Health System Response Monitor platform, this article analyzed measures taken to prevent transmission, ensure capacity, provide...

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Autores principales: Webb, Erin, Winkelmann, Juliane, Scarpetti, Giada, Behmane, Daiga, Habicht, Triin, Kahur, Kristiina, Kasekamp, Kaija, Köhler, Kristina, Miščikienė, Laura, Misins, Janis, Reinap, Marge, Slapšinskaitė-Dackevičienė, Agnė, Võrk, Andres, Karanikolos, Marina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Published by Elsevier B.V. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8667424/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35101287
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2021.12.003
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author Webb, Erin
Winkelmann, Juliane
Scarpetti, Giada
Behmane, Daiga
Habicht, Triin
Kahur, Kristiina
Kasekamp, Kaija
Köhler, Kristina
Miščikienė, Laura
Misins, Janis
Reinap, Marge
Slapšinskaitė-Dackevičienė, Agnė
Võrk, Andres
Karanikolos, Marina
author_facet Webb, Erin
Winkelmann, Juliane
Scarpetti, Giada
Behmane, Daiga
Habicht, Triin
Kahur, Kristiina
Kasekamp, Kaija
Köhler, Kristina
Miščikienė, Laura
Misins, Janis
Reinap, Marge
Slapšinskaitė-Dackevičienė, Agnė
Võrk, Andres
Karanikolos, Marina
author_sort Webb, Erin
collection PubMed
description The Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania shared a similar response to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the information available on the COVID-19 Health System Response Monitor platform, this article analyzed measures taken to prevent transmission, ensure capacity, provide essential services, finance the health system, and coordinate their governance approaches. All three countries used a highly centralized approach and implemented restrictive measures relatively early, with a state of emergency declared with fewer than 30 reported cases in each country. Due to initially low COVID-19 incidence, the countries built up their capacities for testing, contact tracing, and infrastructure, without a major stress test to the health system throughout the spring and summer of 2020, yet issues with accessing routine health care services had already started manifesting themselves. The countries in the Baltic region entered the pandemic with a precarious starting point, particularly due to smaller operational budgets and health workforce shortages, which may have contributed to their escalated response aiming to prevent transmission during the first wave. Subsequent waves, however, were much more damaging. This article focuses on early responses to the pandemic in the Baltic states highlighting measures taken to prevent virus transmission in the face of major uncertainties.
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spelling pubmed-86674242021-12-14 Lessons learned from the Baltic countries’ response to the first wave of COVID-19 Webb, Erin Winkelmann, Juliane Scarpetti, Giada Behmane, Daiga Habicht, Triin Kahur, Kristiina Kasekamp, Kaija Köhler, Kristina Miščikienė, Laura Misins, Janis Reinap, Marge Slapšinskaitė-Dackevičienė, Agnė Võrk, Andres Karanikolos, Marina Health Policy Article The Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania shared a similar response to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the information available on the COVID-19 Health System Response Monitor platform, this article analyzed measures taken to prevent transmission, ensure capacity, provide essential services, finance the health system, and coordinate their governance approaches. All three countries used a highly centralized approach and implemented restrictive measures relatively early, with a state of emergency declared with fewer than 30 reported cases in each country. Due to initially low COVID-19 incidence, the countries built up their capacities for testing, contact tracing, and infrastructure, without a major stress test to the health system throughout the spring and summer of 2020, yet issues with accessing routine health care services had already started manifesting themselves. The countries in the Baltic region entered the pandemic with a precarious starting point, particularly due to smaller operational budgets and health workforce shortages, which may have contributed to their escalated response aiming to prevent transmission during the first wave. Subsequent waves, however, were much more damaging. This article focuses on early responses to the pandemic in the Baltic states highlighting measures taken to prevent virus transmission in the face of major uncertainties. Published by Elsevier B.V. 2022-05 2021-12-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8667424/ /pubmed/35101287 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2021.12.003 Text en © 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Webb, Erin
Winkelmann, Juliane
Scarpetti, Giada
Behmane, Daiga
Habicht, Triin
Kahur, Kristiina
Kasekamp, Kaija
Köhler, Kristina
Miščikienė, Laura
Misins, Janis
Reinap, Marge
Slapšinskaitė-Dackevičienė, Agnė
Võrk, Andres
Karanikolos, Marina
Lessons learned from the Baltic countries’ response to the first wave of COVID-19
title Lessons learned from the Baltic countries’ response to the first wave of COVID-19
title_full Lessons learned from the Baltic countries’ response to the first wave of COVID-19
title_fullStr Lessons learned from the Baltic countries’ response to the first wave of COVID-19
title_full_unstemmed Lessons learned from the Baltic countries’ response to the first wave of COVID-19
title_short Lessons learned from the Baltic countries’ response to the first wave of COVID-19
title_sort lessons learned from the baltic countries’ response to the first wave of covid-19
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8667424/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35101287
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2021.12.003
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