Health system, public health, and economic implications of managing COVID-19 from a cardiovascular perspective

The COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread internationally. After ini- tial outbreaks have been supressed for now in China and South Korea, the virus continues to spread at an alarming rate throughout Europe.1 At the time of writing, a quarter of the world is in some form of lock- down. We consider not just the short-term effects of COVID-19, but also medium to long-term effects. We conclude that the health system and economic impacts of COVID-19 may be exacerbated by lost opportunities for primary and secondary prevention. We suggest that in order to mitigate against this risk, public health messages are devel- oped which are co-beneficial to protect against COVID-19 and the pri- mary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease.