COVID-19 and Health System Vulnerabilities in the Poorest Developing Countries

Low health system capacity makes developing countries highly vulnerable to the novel coronavirus. The 20 most vulnerable countries in the world will run out of ICU beds if, on average, just 0.04% of their population is actively infected. The Imperial College estimates that 2.5% of the population will be actively infected at the peak of the pandemic. This brief sketches the possible dimensions of that crisis and the challenges it represents to the health and socio-economic response.