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Smaller clusters have also been reported on 5 other US military vessels, and in one each from France, Taiwan, and Holland. However, given usual security policies and communication restrictions of national armies and navies, it is possible that other unreported clusters of cases and even deaths might have occurred.
Special Aspects of the Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic and the international response to it have highlighted several specific aspects, including both successes and failures. Lessons learned from different countries should be used to inform the preparedness for, and management of, future pandemics (by coronaviruses, influenza viruses or by as yet unknown pathogens): •
First outbreak (China)
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Surprise or unpreparedness (Italy)
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Unwillingness to prepare (UK, USA, Brazil)
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Partial preparedness (France)
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Preparedness (Germany)
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Herd immunity? (Sweden)
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Deferred beginning (South America)
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Splendid isolation (New Zealand, Australia)
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Unknown outcome (Africa)
First outbreak (China) China was caught by surprise by the COVID-19 outbreak – as any other nation would have been – but “thanks” to the experience of the SARS outbreak in 2003 (Kamps-Hoffmann 2003), was prepared for it. At first, the epidemic spread within Wuhan and Hubei Province (December 2019, Li Q 2020) and then nationwide to all provinces in January 2020, favored by travelers departing from Wuhan before the Chinese Spring Festival (Zhong 2020, Jia JS 2020). However, within 3 weeks from the identification of the new virus, the government ordered the lockdown of more than 50 million people in Wuhan and the surrounding province of Hubei, as well as strict quarantine measures and travel restrictions for hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens. This astonishing first in human history achieved what even specialists did not dare to dream: curbing an epidemic caused by a highly contagious virus (Lau 2020).
Kamps – Hoffmann
