What COVID-19 has taught us: lessons from around the globe
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EDITORIAL
What COVID-19 has taught us: lessons from around the globe Adrian H. C. Koh 1 & Luke R. S. Koh 1 & Shwu-Jiuan Sheu 2 & Taiji Sakamoto 3 Received: 3 June 2020 / Revised: 3 June 2020 / Accepted: 6 June 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity” – Sun Tzu (544–496 BC). COVID-19 hit us without warning. What started out in December 2019 as an isolated outbreak of a respiratory illness, ostensibly transmitted from the horseshoe bat in a wet market in the city of Wuhan, China, led rapidly to a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020 and being declared a pandemic on 11 March by the World Health Organization (WHO) [1]. In a short span, it has affected almost 6 million people worldwide, resulting in more than 355,000 deaths [2]. The world has not seen such a widespread disease since the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009 [3] and the Spanish Flu in the early twentieth century [4].
The chaos of the COVID pandemic and its impact on ophthalmology The impact of this current pandemic is much greater than more recent outbreaks such as SARS and Ebola because of globalization and ease of travel. Many countries instituted drastic and sometimes extreme quarantine measures (e.g., locking down over 60 million people in Hubei province, including This article is part of a topical collection on Perspectives on COVID-19 * Adrian H. C. Koh [email protected] * Taiji Sakamoto [email protected] Luke R. S. Koh [email protected] Shwu-Jiuan Sheu [email protected] 1
Eye & Retina Surgeons, #13-03 Camden Medical Centre, 1 Orchard Boulevard, Singapore 248649, Singapore
2
Kaohshiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
3
Kagoshima University, 8-35-1 Sakuragaoka, Kagoshima 890-8520, Japan
the epicenter of the crisis, Wuhan) [5]. The alarming reports of ophthalmologists contracting the deadly illness from infected patients especially the 34-year-old Wuhan ophthalmologist, Li Wenliang, made ophthalmologists wary and nervous of spread of COVID through contact with their patients, either through close proximity with patients during the typical ophthalmic consultation or via diagnostic tests and surgical procedures through aerosolization and fomites [6]. COVID-19 is widespread in Asia, but mortality rates are much lower than in Western European countries and the USA. The Johns Hopkins University revealed that the death rate per 100,000 people was 82.56 in Belgium, 10.25 in Germany, and 31.42 in the USA. Across Asia, the rates were 0.33 in China, 0.7 in Japan, 0.52 in South Korea, 0.04 in Singapore, and 0.03 in Taiwan [2]. The enigma of lower death rates in East Asia cannot be explained easily. Researchers are examining many factors, including differences in genetics and immune system responses, separate virus strains, and regional contrasts in obesity levels and general health, but the results have been inconclusive so far [7].
The Taiwan experience Taiwan has been hailed as the most successful model in
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