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of society. Focused attention should be given to the areas of command, control and intersectoral coordination, coordinated risk communication, hospital preparedness, and business continuity planning for the healthcare sector and critical societal services. The infrastructure for rapid intersectoral information exchange and decision-making should be effective to enable communication and coordination of response strategies between the national crisis team and relevant stakeholders and sectors from the regional to the national levels. To operationalise the response system, it is important to establish both the legal framework and develop standardised procedures that enable its implementation. Therefore, the roles and responsibilities of all relevant stakeholders involved in the risk management within or outside the national crisis team and the lines of communication should be defined. The overall crisis management scheme should be informed by public health risk assessments and by monitoring of key indicators of response. For the public health sector these include: surveillance, laboratory diagnostics, case investigation and contact tracing; for the healthcare system: isolation capacity, occupancy rates for regular and ICU beds, PPE availability, availability of essential drugs, equipment for mechanical ventilation and oxygenation and other hospital supplies. Hospital preparedness and activation of contingency plans is an absolute priority at this moment. In healthcare settings, surge capacity plans should be developed and/or revised to address the expected high demand for care of increased numbers of patients with moderate or severe respiratory distress. Accumulating anecdotal evidence from north Italy points to significant pressure experienced in emergency departments and critical care services, specifically in the availability of ventilator equipment and PPE. Evidence from China, South Korea and Italy points at the need to: 1) design and implement an overall strategy of discouraging symptomatic patients from presenting to any facility without prior instructions 2) designate treatment facilities both for mild and for severe COVID-19 cases with critical care capabilities (e.g. ECMO). This implies activation of hospital plans to the highest level to be able to cancel elective diagnostic and operative procedures and re-assign human resources, creating temporary treatment facilities for the mild cases or advising self-isolation until symptoms improve or worsen [57,58]. 3) Ban access to hospitals to family and friends of admitted patients. In addition, decreasing the administrative workload for healthcare workers e.g. providing sick leave certificates electronically or by phone, would free up resources. Finally, it is crucial to prepare or adapt business continuity plans for healthcare facilities in accordance with the latest public health risk assessment and guidance from national, regional or local health authorities to ensure continuity of essential health services. For more details, please consider the related hospital preparedness checklist [59]. It is important that planned response strategies, including diagnostic testing, can be adapted according to case finding strategies and adjusted to a surge of cases by de-escalating procedures that might no longer be feasible and/or beneficial It is crucial to also prepare or adapt business continuity plans for non-healthcare settings in accordance with the latest public health risk assessment and guidance from national, regional or local health authorities to ensure continuity of essential services (e.g. transportation, energy, and information technology sectors). Overall, the business continuity plans should define the procedures and processes a business or organisation or healthcare facility should follow in response to the potential impact of COVID-19 on critical functions (processes, assets and human resources). The plan should also include policies and recommendations for employees with symptoms of acute respiratory illness, routine environmental cleaning and travel health advice [61] based on the objectives of the business continuity plan. Collaboration with supply chain partners and other stakeholders has to be initiated to understand the usage, availability and access to critical resources, and sustainable financing mechanisms could be put in place. Risk communication A high level of public awareness is a prerequisite for an effective response with social distancing measures to the COVID-19 outbreak. Risk communication activities should emphasise that although this is a new and highly contagious disease, the vast majority of infected people will recover. Easily accessible information should be available on the signs and symptoms (i.e. fever and dry cough) of COVID-19; the contact details of local health services and national hotlines; the population groups at high risk of severe disease; social distancing measures that may be in place; and travel advice. All relevant audiences should be targeted, including through the use of appropriate minority languages. Monitoring systems should be put in place to observe public perceptions, opinions and compliance with individual measures. Procedures for identifying and rapidly addressing misinformation, disinformation and rumours, especially on social media platforms, should be established. The public need