“The biggest mistake we made was to admit patients infected with COVID-19 into hospitals throughout the region,” said Carlo Borghetti, the vice-premier of Lombardy, an economically crucial region with a population of 10 million… We should have immediately set up separate structures exclusively for people sick with coronavirus. I recommend the rest of the world do this, to not send COVID patients into health-care facilities that are still uninfected….

However, the virus was not only spread to “clean” — i.e. infection-free — hospitals by admitting positive patients. In early March, as the number of infected was doubling every few days, authorities allowed overwhelmed hospitals to transfer those who tested positive but weren’t gravely ill into assisted-living facilities for the elderly.”

The lessons Italy has learned about its COVID-19 outbreak could help the rest of the world

Read that last paragraph again. Why did Italy not learn the lessons from South Korea? Or even from earlier epidemics? Such as the polio outbreak in Canada in the 1950s. I quote (my emphasis):

Her day would end 12 hours later by carefully removing the awkward gown, gloves and mask she wore, ensuring as she did that none of her clothes became contaminated. She would return to the former army barracks where she and other nursing students lived in isolation, their food delivered from the hospital cafeteria.

In the 1950s, Canada faced a terrifying epidemic. Here’s how it was conquered.

Is Spain making the same mistakes (102136 cases as of writing)? How about NYC?