In a March 2020 article for the Washington Post, Emily Anthes, author of the recently published title, The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness, writes while discussing a SARS outbreak, "One irony of an infectious-disease outbreak is that it turns hospitals, which should be a refuge for the sick, into hot zones, putting everyone inside at risk." In the next paragraph, she adds, "When doctors in Wuhan, China, where the new virus first emerged, studied 138 early cases, they concluded that 41 per cent of patients had most likely contracted the disease in the hospital."

People line up at Nair Hospital for COVID-19 tests. In an ideal healthcare situation, say experts, tests should be conducted outside hospitals with only those advised by their GP, heading to the hospital for further consultations. This would decentralise hospitals and prevent over crowding