The COVID-19 pandemic

[tomh009]

As for Italy it was a sad mistake by what I understand.   Patient 0 was turned away more than once from a hospital.   Only to finally be tested.       

This. Patient 0 ended up going to multiple hospitals and transmitting the virus at each one to staff, who in turn spread it to (already-weakened) patients. Something close to 99% of the deaths in Italy had significant pre-existing health issues, most of them already hospitalized for those. The pre-existing conditions, in turn, precipitated the need for more ventilators, and the shortage of those increased the mortality rate.

It's a sequence of problems, but initiated by the mistaken (and repeated) dismissal of Patient 0 from the hospitals.