The Epidemiological Hypothesis Of “The Trojan Horse”: Were Hospitals The Main Vectors Of The Exponencial Beginning Of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) In Spain And Other Countries?

Authors: Turabian JL*

DOI: 10.23880/eij-16000146

Volume 4, Issue 3

Abstract

Experience has highlighted the ineffectiveness of hospitals as the first port of call for viruses. This article, based mainly on the case of Spain, proposes to reflect on two hypotheses: 1) the main cause of the explosive increase in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak was hospitals: Initially, under poor epidemiological information systems, a number of “imported” cases circulated in the community weeks before the outbreak of COVID-19. Symptomatic cases were treated in the health system, both in health centers and in hospital emergency services. The most serious cases came to hospitals. COVID-19 entered camouflaged as “usual” acute respiratory infections, as in a Trojan horse. Once COVID-19 was “activated” within hospital (a closed institution where hundreds or thousands of people live closely with each other and with their sick and relatives), the virus was “installed” in doctors, nurses, auxiliary personnel, ambulance drivers, etc., as well as other patients, all of this exponentially and in a very short time fast, crashing the system. And 2) The main cause of the maintenance of the COVID-19 outbreak is Nursing homes and even hospitals: The fact of maintaining relatively high numbers of new cases and deaths after three weeks of mandatory confinement, should be mainly due to the new cases of contagion in Nursing homes, and the maintenance of contagions in hospitals overflowing, poorly conditioned, saturated with sick, and with still limited protective equipment.

Keywords: COVID-19; Epidemiology; Infectious Disease; Outbreak Modelling

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