Applying patient safety principles in public safety in the COVID-19 scenario

Abstract

COVID-19 has overwhelmed the health systems all over the world. Using a methodology for finding excess deaths due to illnesses, we estimated the statistics for the countries which had their first case of coronavirus infection in January 2020. For illustration, the avoidable harm in the USA was 160,988 and that of the UK was 38,857 until the 2nd week of August 2020. Geographic distribution of excess deaths was plotted on GeoDa® shaded map. Spatial error model showed that early and vigorous testing reduced the mortality load. Strategy has to be worked out to contain the pandemic using the appropriate public health tools.