There were many inherently favourable features of the pandemic itself, not all of which were immediately apparent (Table 1) . This was not 1918 Spanish flu. The impact has been mostly confined to the health sector. But that impact has been significant and heterogeneous, with pressure experienced by primary and hospital care (especially intensive care and paediatric services). Distilling descriptions of the impact of a complex public health threat like a pandemic into a single term like ''mild,'' ''moderate,'' or ''severe'' can potentially be misleading [2] . Certainly the experience of hospital clinicians indicated that this pandemic, sometimes described as ''mild to moderate,'' was not limited to only mild or moderate illness. Many patients were severely ill and died, and undoubtedly, high-quality clinical management of patients with severe complications in intensive care units saved many lives of the critically ill, who often required prolonged hospitalisation [3] .