Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Van Damme, Wim
• Dahake, Ritwik
• Delamou, Alexandre
• Ingelbeen, Brecht
• Wouters, Edwin
• Vanham, Guido
• van de Pas, Remco
• Dossou, Jean-Paul
• Ir, Por
• Abimbola, Seye
• Van der Borght, Stefaan
• Narayanan, Devadasan
• Bloom, Gerald
• Van Engelgem, Ian
• Ag Ahmed, Mohamed Ali
• Kiendrébéogo, Joël Arthur
• Verdonck, Kristien
• De Brouwere, Vincent
• Bello, Kéfilath
• Kloos, Helmut
• Aaby, Peter
• Kalk, Andreas
• Al-Awlaqi, Sameh
• Prashanth, NS
• Muyembe-Tamfum, Jean-Jacques
• Mbala, Placide
• Ahuka-Mundeke, Steve
• Assefa, Yibeltal

Titel

The COVID-19 pandemic: diverse contexts; different epidemics—how and why?

Ist Teil von

• BMJ global health, 2020-07, Vol.5 (7), p.e003098

Ort / Verlag

England: BMJ Publishing Group LTD

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• It is very exceptional that a new disease becomes a true pandemic. Since its emergence in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, has spread to nearly all countries of the world in only a few months. However, in different countries, the COVID-19 epidemic takes variable shapes and forms in how it affects communities. Until now, the insights gained on COVID-19 have been largely dominated by the COVID-19 epidemics and the lockdowns in China, Europe and the USA. But this variety of global trajectories is little described, analysed or understood. In only a few months, an enormous amount of scientific evidence on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 has been uncovered (knowns). But important knowledge gaps remain (unknowns). Learning from the variety of ways the COVID-19 epidemic is unfolding across the globe can potentially contribute to solving the COVID-19 puzzle. This paper tries to make sense of this variability—by exploring the important role that context plays in these different COVID-19 epidemics; by comparing COVID-19 epidemics with other respiratory diseases, including other coronaviruses that circulate continuously; and by highlighting the critical unknowns and uncertainties that remain. These unknowns and uncertainties require a deeper understanding of the variable trajectories of COVID-19. Unravelling them will be important for discerning potential future scenarios, such as the first wave in virgin territories still untouched by COVID-19 and for future waves elsewhere.