Editorials Open access

COVID-19: End of the beginning?

Authors

Published
29 May 2020
Section
Editorials
DOI
10.4081/gh.2020.897

Abstract

The limited case cluster of atypical pneumonia detected in central China in December 2019, now known as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19), converted into a million confirmed cases worldwide in only 10 weeks. Declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020 (WHO, 2020) and passing the 3 million mark on 27 April, the world is under formidable strain with respect to public health, economy and personal life. Time and again we are alerted about unforeseen, new effects of this disease, which brings to mind the terms known unknowns and unknown unknowns used by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield when referring to the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ahead of the second Gulf war, a fitting vocabulary as we again are faced with mass destruction, though this time of a different kind.

Keywords

References

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