It has been nearly two months since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak a worldwide pandemic. The global economy is in freefall, nurses and doctors are fighting for the lives of patients without sufficient personal protective equipment, and the working class continues to carry out fundamental labour to keep society afloat. World leaders, and their citizenry, are searching frantically for solutions to curtail one of the largest public health emergencies of modern history.
While countries like China, South Korea and Singapore have been able to stabilise their sick populations through the use of contact tracing, mass testing and early adoption of social distancing measures, North American and western European states have failed to implement and scale up these provisions in sufficient time and are on track to experience the heaviest burden of the outbreak. The urgency of the epidemic requires these immediate, coronavirus-specific solutions that allow us to 'flatten the curve' and save as many lives as possible.
But as our hospitals and frontline workers are pushed to their absolute limits, the public is facing the stark question: which health systems are able to cope with the newly applied pressure and which will collapse under its weight?
