title: Is there an impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on male fertility? The ACE2 connection

text: The viral pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), generated by a novel mutated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), has become a serious worldwide public health emergency, evolving exponentially. While the main organ targeted in this disease is the lungs, other vital organs, such as the heart and kidney, may be implicated. The main host receptor of the SARS-CoV-2 is angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), a major component of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS). The ACE2 is also involved in testicular male regulation of steroidogenesis and spermatogenesis. As the SARS-CoV-2 may have the potential to infect the testis via ACE2 and adversely affect male reproductive system, it is essential to commence with targeted studies to learn from the current pandemic, with the possibility of preemptive intervention, depending on the findings and time course of the continuing pandemic.


COVID-19 and Congenital Heart Disease: Perspectives from a Resource-limited Setting


Impact of COVID-19 on ophthalmic specialist training in the United Kingdom-the trainees' perspective


Navigating Healthcare Supply Shortages During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cardiologist's Perspective


title: On the dynamics emerging from pandemics and infodemics

text: This position paper discusses emerging behavioral, social, and economic dynamics related to the COVID-19 pandemic and puts particular emphasis on two emerging issues: First, delayed effects (or second strikes) of pandemics caused by dread risk effects are discussed whereby two factors which might influence the existence of such effects are identified, namely the accessibility of (mis-)information and the effects of policy decisions on adaptive behavior. Second, the issue of individual preparedness to hazardous events is discussed. As events such as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds complex behavioral patterns which are hard to predict, sophisticated models which account for behavioral, social, and economic dynamics are required to assess the effectivity and efficiency of decision-making.


Restructuring burns management during the COVID-19 pandemic: A Malaysian experience


title: Gynecologic oncology at the time of COVID-19 outbreak

text: The World Health Organization (WHO) classified the novel coronavirus (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019 [COVID-19]) as a global public health emergency. COVID-19 threatens to curtail patient access to evidence-based treatment. Medicine is changing, basically due to the limited available resources. In the field of gynecologic oncology, we have to re-design our treatments' paradigm. During COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the highest priority is to achieve the maximum benefit from less demanding procedures. Extensive procedures should be avoided, in order to reduce hospitalization and postoperative events that might increase the in-hospital spread of the virus. There are ongoing concerns on the use of laparoscopic procedures, related to the possible contamination of the staff working in the operation room. Other minimally invasive techniques, including, vaginal surgery as well as robotic-assisted and isobaric procedures would be preferred over laparoscopy. A fair allocation of resources is paramount adequate treatments.


Prone positioning in COVID-19 acute respiratory failure: just do it?


Vertigo and hearing loss during the COVID-19 pandemic - is there an association?


title: Two immunocompromised patients with diffuse alveolar hemorrhage as a complication of severe COVID-19

text: Diffuse alveolar hemorrhage (DAH) is a severe and potentially life-threatening disease manifestation. Besides autoimmune diseases such as anti-neutrophil cytoplasmatic antibody (ANCA) associated vasculitis and anti-glomerular basement membrane (anti-GBM) syndrome pulmonary viral infections are also known to be culprits of DAH. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic confronts healthcare providers all around the world with an unprecedented number of viral lung infections with a great variance in symptoms and severity. Hemoptysis being the key symptome of DAH has so far been reported to be rare. We present two cases of immunocompromised patients with rapidly developing hypoxemic respiratory failure and evidence of DAH in the context of SARS-CoV-2 infection.


Covid-19: Surveys indicate low infection level in community


Nurses in Conflict: Providing Care in Extraordinary Times


title: Directives concrètes à l'intention des équipes de soins intensifs et d'anesthésiologie prenant soin de patients atteints du coronavirus 2019-nCoV./ Practical recommendations for critical care and anesthesiology teams caring for novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) patients

text: A global health emergency has been declared by the World Health Organization as the 2019-nCoV outbreak spreads across the world, with confirmed patients in Canada. Patients infected with 2019-nCoV are at risk for developing respiratory failure and requiring admission to critical care units. While providing optimal treatment for these patients, careful execution of infection control measures is necessary to prevent nosocomial transmission to other patients and to healthcare workers providing care. Although the exact mechanisms of transmission are currently unclear, human-to-human transmission can occur, and the risk of airborne spread during aerosol-generating medical procedures remains a concern in specific circumstances. This paper summarizes important considerations regarding patient screening, environmental controls, personal protective equipment, resuscitation measures (including intubation), and critical care unit operations planning as we prepare for the possibility of new imported cases or local outbreaks of 2019-nCoV. Although understanding of the 2019-nCoV virus is evolving, lessons learned from prior infectious disease challenges such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome will hopefully improve our state of readiness regardless of the number of cases we eventually manage in Canada.


The role of pulmonary CT scans for children during the COVID-19 pandemic


title: Improper use of germicidal range ultraviolet lamp for household disinfection leading to phototoxicity in COVID-19 suspects

text: PURPOSE: To report germicidal range ultraviolet (UV) irradiation-induced phototoxicity due to unprotected exposure to UV lamps for presumed household disinfection of SARS-CoV-2 in a domestic setting. METHODS: We report on a family of three adults who experienced photophobia, intense eye pain, epiphora, blurred vision, and burning sensation over the face and neck area after a short period of unprotected exposure to UV germicidal lamps. RESULTS: Initial examination revealed erythema and tenderness over the face and neck area, reduced visual acuity of 6/12, and conjunctival injections bilaterally in all three patients. Further assessment at the ophthalmology department three days later revealed gradual improvement of visual acuity to 6/6 bilaterally. Slit-lamp examinations revealed few punctate epithelial erosions. Fundal examinations were normal without evidence of solar retinopathy. The patients were diagnosed with germicidal-range UV irradiation-induced photokeratitis and epidermal phototoxicity. Lubricants and emollients were prescribed for symptom relief, and the patients were warned against using a UV germicidal lamp for disinfection purposes without appropriate protection. CONCLUSIONS: Although SARS-CoV-2 is structurally akin to SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV, and previous studies demonstrated high levels of inactivation of beta-coronavirus with germicidal-range UV, evidence for its efficacy to inactivate SARS-CoV-2 is lacking. This case report serves to emphasize the potential consequences of phototoxicity from improper use of UV germicidal lamps for household disinfection as well as to highlight the fact that UV germicidal lamps currently have no established role in household disinfection of SARS-CoV-2.


title: Phylogenetic analysis of the first four SARS-CoV-2 cases in Chile

text: The current pandemic caused by the new coronavirus is a worldwide public health concern. To aboard this emergency, and like never before, scientific groups around the world have been working in a fast and coordinated way to get the maximum of information about this virus when it has been almost 3 months since the first cases were detected in Wuhan province in China. The complete genome sequences of around 450 isolates are available, and studies about similarities and differences among them and with the close related viruses that caused similar epidemics in this century. In this work, we studied the complete genome of the first four cases of the new coronavirus disease in Chile, from patients who traveled to Europe and Southeast Asia. Our findings reveal at least two different viral variants entries to Chilean territory, coming from Europe and Asia. We also sub-classified the isolates into variants according to punctual mutations in the genome. Our work contributes to global information about transmission dynamics and the importance to take control measures to stop the spread of the infection.


title: [Hepatic Portal Vein Gas during Chemotherapy for Esophageal Cancer-A Report of Four Cases]

text: Case 1, a man in his 70s, was admitted because of a bleeding gastric ulcer during DCF therapy for esophageal cancer(EC). Three days after endoscopic hemostasis, abdominal pain and vomiting occurred.CT revealed hepatic portal venous gas (HPVG).No intestinal necrosis was observed on contrast-enhanced CT.Therefore, we selected a conservative treatment and found improvement.Case 2, a man in his 70s, developed frequent diarrhea during DCF therapy for EC.Case 3, a man in his 80s, developed hematochezie during DCF therapy for EC.Both cases 2 and 3 were diagnosed as HPVG using abdominal ultrasonography.The symptoms were mild, so we selected a conservative treatment and found improvement.Case 4, a man in his 60s, noticed sudden severe abdominal pain during DGS therapy for EC.Plain CT detected HPVG and gas in the small intestinal wall.We suspected intestinal necrosis due to HPVG with peritoneal irritation and performed emergency small intestine resection.We encountered 4 patients who developed HPVG during chemotherapy.The presence of HPVG is a poor prognostic sign, suggestive of intestinal necrosis, but some patients show improvement with conservative treatments.We also discuss previous reviews and reports.


title: Documento de posicionamiento AEG-SEED para el reinicio de la actividad endoscópica tras la fase pico de la pandemia de COVID-19./ Documento de posicionamiento AEG-SEED para el reinicio de la actividad endoscópica tras la fase pico de la pandemia de COVID-19./ AEG-SEED position paper for the resumption of endoscopic activity after the peak phase of the COVID-19 pandemic

text: INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the suspension of programmed activity in most of the Endoscopy Units in our environment. The aim of this document is to facilitate the resumption of elective endoscopic activity in an efficient and safe manner. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A series of questions considered to be of clinical and logistical relevance were formulated. In order to elaborate the answers, a structured bibliographic search was carried out in the main databases and the recommendations of the main Public Health and Digestive Endoscopy institutions were reviewed. The final recommendations were agreed upon through telematic means. RESULTS: A total of 33 recommendations were made. The main aspects discussed are: 1) Reassessment and prioritization of the indication, 2) Restructuring of spaces, schedules and health personnel, 3) Screening for infection, 4) Hygiene measures and personal protective equipment. CONCLUSION: The AEG and SEED recommend restarting endoscopic activity in a phased, safe manner, adapted to local resources and the epidemiological situation of SARS-CoV-2 infection.


title: Observational Study of Hydroxychloroquine in Hospitalized Patients with Covid-19

text: BACKGROUND: Hydroxychloroquine has been widely administered to patients with Covid-19 without robust evidence supporting its use. METHODS: We examined the association between hydroxychloroquine use and intubation or death at a large medical center in New York City. Data were obtained regarding consecutive patients hospitalized with Covid-19, excluding those who were intubated, died, or discharged within 24 hours after presentation to the emergency department (study baseline). The primary end point was a composite of intubation or death in a time-to-event analysis. We compared outcomes in patients who received hydroxychloroquine with those in patients who did not, using a multivariable Cox model with inverse probability weighting according to the propensity score. RESULTS: Of 1446 consecutive patients, 70 patients were intubated, died, or discharged within 24 hours after presentation and were excluded from the analysis. Of the remaining 1376 patients, during a median follow-up of 22.5 days, 811 (58.9%) received hydroxychloroquine (600 mg twice on day 1, then 400 mg daily for a median of 5 days); 45.8% of the patients were treated within 24 hours after presentation to the emergency department, and 85.9% within 48 hours. Hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were more severely ill at baseline than those who did not receive hydroxychloroquine (median ratio of partial pressure of arterial oxygen to the fraction of inspired oxygen, 223 vs. 360). Overall, 346 patients (25.1%) had a primary end-point event (180 patients were intubated, of whom 66 subsequently died, and 166 died without intubation). In the main analysis, there was no significant association between hydroxychloroquine use and intubation or death (hazard ratio, 1.04, 95% confidence interval, 0.82 to 1.32). Results were similar in multiple sensitivity analyses. CONCLUSIONS: In this observational study involving patients with Covid-19 who had been admitted to the hospital, hydroxychloroquine administration was not associated with either a greatly lowered or an increased risk of the composite end point of intubation or death. Randomized, controlled trials of hydroxychloroquine in patients with Covid-19 are needed. (Funded by the National Institutes of Health.).


title: Tests, surgical masks, hospital beds, and ventilators: add big data to the list of tools to fight the coronavirus that are in short supply

text: Big data could help identify potential clues about the immediate (and future) impact of coronavirus disease 2019, but it is in short supply.


title: Tracking Social Media Discourse About the COVID-19 Pandemic: Development of a Public Coronavirus Twitter Data Set

text: BACKGROUND: At the time of this writing, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak has already put tremendous strain on many countries' citizens, resources, and economies around the world. Social distancing measures, travel bans, self-quarantines, and business closures are changing the very fabric of societies worldwide. With people forced out of public spaces, much of the conversation about these phenomena now occurs online on social media platforms like Twitter. OBJECTIVE: In this paper, we describe a multilingual COVID-19 Twitter data set that we are making available to the research community via our COVID-19-TweetIDs GitHub repository. METHODS: We started this ongoing data collection on January 28, 2020, leveraging Twitter's streaming application programming interface (API) and Tweepy to follow certain keywords and accounts that were trending at the time data collection began. We used Twitter's search API to query for past tweets, resulting in the earliest tweets in our collection dating back to January 21, 2020. RESULTS: Since the inception of our collection, we have actively maintained and updated our GitHub repository on a weekly basis. We have published over 123 million tweets, with over 60% of the tweets in English. This paper also presents basic statistics that show that Twitter activity responds and reacts to COVID-19-related events. CONCLUSIONS: It is our hope that our contribution will enable the study of online conversation dynamics in the context of a planetary-scale epidemic outbreak of unprecedented proportions and implications. This data set could also help track COVID-19-related misinformation and unverified rumors or enable the understanding of fear and panic-and undoubtedly more.


title: CT Manifestations of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia: A Case Report

text: Background: Since December 2019, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus has impacted nearly >90,000 people in more than 75 countries. In this case report, we aim to define the chest computed tomography findings of 2019-novel coronavirus associated with pneumonia and its successful resolution after treatment. Case Report: A fifty-year-old female patient, who is a businesswoman, presented with chief complaints of "fever for one week, diarrhea, anorexia, and asthenia." Initially, she was given Tamiflu. The influenza A virus serology was negative. Three days later, levofloxacin was started because the patient's symptoms did not improve. The novel coronavirus nucleic acid test was negative. It was noted that before the onset of the disease, the patient went to Wuhan on a business trip. Despite the given treatment, her body temperature rose to 39.2°C and she was referred to our clinic for further evaluation. Then, chest computed tomography was performed and showed bilateral multifocal ground glass opacities with consolidation which suggested viral pneumonia as a differential diagnosis, and the subsequent 2019-novel coronavirus pneumonia nucleic acid test was positive. Conclusion: Chest computed tomography offers fast and convenient evaluation of patients with suspected 2019-novel coronavirus pneumonia.


title: The silent deaths of the elderly in long-term care facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic: The role of forensic pathology

text: The Covid-19 pandemic is currently a major global public health problem. We know that the elderly and people with chronic diseases contract the infection more easily and they develop clinically more serious and often lethal forms. To date, the reasons for this have been generically attributed to old age and underlying diseases. Most Covid-19 deaths occurred in long-term care facilities because the residents are elderly people with chronic illness living in close contact. Therefore, facilities have become epidemic outbreaks. Forensic knowledge is very limited because an autopsy is rarely performed. Post-mortem investigations can help increase knowledge about Covid-19 and identify any undiagnosed pathologies in life. Therefore, forensic investigations play a role in protecting a frail population. Autopsies should be encouraged on elderly people who died of Covid-19.


title: Modeling compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines: the critical role of trust in science

text: The coronavirus pandemic is one of the biggest health crises of our time. In response to this global problem, various institutions around the world had soon issued evidence-based prevention guidelines. However, these guidelines, which were designed to slow the spread of COVID-19 and contribute to public well-being, are (deliberately) disregarded by some individuals. In the present study, we aimed to develop and test a multivariate model that could help us identify individual characteristics that make a person more/less likely to comply with COVID-19 prevention guidelines. A total of 525 attentive participants completed the online survey. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) show that COVID-19 risk perception and trust in science both independently predict compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines, while the remaining variables in the model (political conservatism, religious orthodoxy, conspiracy ideation and intellectual curiosity) do so via the mediating role of trust in science. The described model exhibited an acceptable fit (χ2(1611) = 2485.84, p < .001, CFI = .91, RMSEA = .032, SRMR = .055). These findings thus provide empirical support for the proposed multivariate model and underline the importance of trust in science in explaining the different levels of compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines.


International expert consensus statement regarding radiotherapy treatment options for rectal cancer during the COVID 19 pandemic


[Clinical observation on increasing the positive rate of novel coronavirus nucleic acid tests by sputum excretion induced by nebulizer therapy]


Compassionate Use of Remdesivir in Covid-19


title: Physical activity-related injuries of college students in southern China: A 1-year prospective study

text: This prospective study was to describe the incidence and characteristics of physical activity-related injuries (PARI) among college students in southern China. Online questionnaires and telephone interviews were combined to investigate the physical activity (PA) participation and PARI occurrences every two weeks. Totally, 84 college students (men: 49; women: 35) with a mean age of 19.4 years completed the entire 1-year follow-up. Overall, 14250.3 PA exposure hours were collected and 36 PARI episodes were reported by 26 students, with an injury incidence density of 2.53 injuries per 1000 PA exposure hours and an injury risk of 0.43 injuries/student/year. July to September accounted for a highest proportion of injuries and half of the injuries happened in the evening. The majority of injuries occurred outdoors, happened in non-contact activities, were acute and involved the lower limbs, with sprains and strains being the primary injury types. Of all injuries, 80.6% resulted in PA withdrawal immediately and 58.3% led to absence from the next planned PA. No significant difference was found between men and women. This study reveals the problem of PARI among college students, which provides the direction for the prevention of PARI in this population.


Recommendations for treatment of nail lichen planus during the COVID-19 pandemic


Tooling-up for infectious disease transmission modelling


title: Renal infarct in a COVID-19-positive kidney-pancreas transplant recipient

text: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with increased risk of thromboembolic events, but the extent and duration of this hypercoagulable state remain unknown. We describe the first case report of renal allograft infarction in a 46-year-old kidney-pancreas transplant recipient with no prior history of thromboembolism, who presented 26 days after diagnosis of COVID-19. At the time of renal infarct, he was COVID-19 symptom free and repeat test for SARS-CoV-2 was negative. This case report suggests that a hypercoagulable state may persist even after resolution of COVID-19. Further studies are required to determine thromboprophylaxis indications and duration in solid organ transplant recipients with COVID-19.


title: Orofacial manifestations of SAPHO syndrome: a systematic review of case reports

text: SAPHO (synovitis, acne, pustulosis, hyperostosis, and osteitis) syndrome is a poorly known disease with cutaneous and osteo-articular manifestations requiring a multidisciplinary care. The aim of this study was to review the case reports that have described oral manifestations in patients suffering for this syndrome. A systematic review of case reports was performed on PubMed and Science Direct on January 2020 among all the articles dealing with the disease. In vitro, preclinical, and clinical studies have not been included to select only the case reports. Eighteen articles, published between 1999 and 2019, were included. All the patients presented mandibular osteomyelitis or sclerosis, associated with various other symptoms such as trismus, temporomandibular joint arthritis, or dysphagia. The data highlight the high variability in the disease's manifestations between people and also in the treatments applied. Knowing the orofacial signs of the SAPHO syndrome, the dental surgeon has a crucial role in the diagnosis procedure and must take place in the multidisciplinary medical team involved in the patient following. Some care adaptations are needed for oral interventions in these patients, depending on their treatments and their handicap.Key Pointsâ¢ Orofacial manifestations of SAPHO syndrome mainly occur on the mandible.â¢ In cases of mandible sclerosis, decorticalization surgeries may be performed.â¢ Oral care are encouraged, especially the preventive treatments to limit the necessity of surgeries.â¢ The complexity in the management of patients suffering for a SAPHO syndrome concerns the oral manifestations, the patient general health and the treatments he has to take every day.


title: Palliative care in the context of a pandemic: similar but different

text: Palliative care is an important component of the medical response to pandemics and other health emergencies. The principles of palliative care do not change, but the practice of palliative care has to change as a result of factors such as greater demand and infection control measures. This article makes suggestions for palliative care provision during a pandemic (in developed countries), based on a limited review of the literature and personal experience of the ongoing pandemic (COVID-19 infection).


How to guarantee liver transplantation in the north of Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic: A sound transplant protection strategy


title: A computational prediction of SARS-CoV-2 structural protein inhibitors from Azadirachta indica (Neem)

text: The rapid global spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has created an unprecedented healthcare crisis. The treatment for the severe respiratory illness caused by this virus is primarily symptomatic at this point, although the usage of a broad antiviral drug Remdesivir has been allowed on emergency basis by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).The ever-increasing death toll highlights an urgent need for development of specific antivirals. In this work, we have utilized docking and simulation methods to identify small molecule inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 Membrane (M) and Envelope (E) proteins, which are essential for virus assembly and budding. A total of 70 compounds from an Indian medicinal plant source (Azadirachta indica or Neem) were virtually screened against these two proteins and further analyzed with molecular dynamics simulations, which resulted in the identification of a few common compounds with strong binding to both structural proteins. The compounds bind to biologically critical regions of M and E, indicating their potential to inhibit the functionality of these components. We hope that our computational approach may result in the identification of effective inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 assembly.


title: Deducing the Crystal Structure of MERS-CoV Helicase

text: RNA virus encodes a helicase essential for viral RNA transcription and replication when the genome size is larger than 7 kb. Coronavirus (CoV) has an exceptionally large RNA genome (~30 kb) and it encodes an essential replicase, the nonstructural protein 13 (nsp13), a member of superfamily 1 helicases. Nsp13 is among the evolutionary most conserved proteins not only in CoVs but also in nidovirales. Thus, it is considered as an important drug target. However, the high-resolution structure of CoV nsp13 remained unavailable even until more than a decade after the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003, which hindered the structure-based drug design. This is in part due to the intrinsic flexibility of nsp13. Here, we describe protocols of deducing the crystal structure of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) helicase in detail, which include protein expression, purification, crystallization, enzymatic characterization, and structure determination. With these methods, catalytically active recombinant MERS-CoV nsp13 protein can be prepared and crystallized and the crystal structure can be solved.


title: The Role of Palliative Care in Caring for the Families of Patients With COVID-19

text: In palliative care, we strive to provide care to the whole patient. When we think about the whole patient, we include the people who are important in our patients' lives. Our New York City-based palliative care team has found that caring for patients' loved ones has proven to be an even more important aspect of the care we have provided during the COVID epidemic. In this article, we describe the multicomponenet interdisciplinary interventions we have implemented to enhance our ability to create a therapeutic alliance with family members and facilitate the provision of goal concordant care to patients with COVID during this extremely difficult time.


Hopes rise for coronavirus drug remdesivir


title: The potential impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on occupational status, work from home, and occupational mobility

text: The economic and social shock presented by the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to reshape perceptions of individuals and organizations about work and occupations and result in both micro and macro shifts in the world of work. In this essay we focus on three occupationally-related domains that may be impacted by the pandemic. First, perceptions of the value and status of different occupations may change, resulting in both changes of occupational supply and demand (macro changes) and changes in the perceived calling and meaningfulness of different occupations (micro changes). Second, the great "work from home experiment" may change occupational perspectives on working from home. Organizations and researchers may be able to better understand which occupational and individual characteristics are associated with work-from-home effectiveness and better designate occupational groups and individuals to working (or not working) from home. Third, we discuss the increased segmentation of the labor market which allocate workers to "good jobs" and "bad jobs" and the contribution of occupational segmentation to inequality.


Skin changes attributed to protective measures against COVID-19: A compilation


title: Analyzing situational awareness through public opinion to predict adoption of social distancing amid pandemic COVID-19

text: COVID-19 pandemic has affected over 100 countries in a matter of weeks. People's response toward social distancing in the emerging pandemic is uncertain. In this study, we evaluated the influence of information (formal and informal) sources on situational awareness of the public for adopting health-protective behaviors such as social distancing. For this purpose, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted. The hypothesis proposed suggests that adoption of social distancing practices is an outcome of situational awareness which is achieved by the information sources. Results suggest that information sources, formal (P = .001) and informal (P = 0.007) were found to be significantly related to perceived understanding. Findings also indicate that social distancing is significantly influenced by situational awareness, P = .000. It can, therefore, be concluded that an increase in situational awareness in times of public health crisis using formal information sources can significantly increase the adoption of protective health behavior and in turn contain the spread of infectious diseases.


title: Factors Associated with Hospital Workers' Intention to Work in South Korea During the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Outbreak

text: OBJECTIVE: This study aims to explore factors associated with the intention to work of hospital workers in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in South Korea. METHODS: An online self-reported survey was conducted in a tertiary hospital. Respondents were asked to report their perceived threat, perceived risk of infection, evaluation of hospital response, demographics, and job-related factors. Descriptive statistics and multivariate regression analyses were performed. RESULTS: A total of 441 employees participated in this study. Of respondents, 60% were willing to accept their work during an infectious disease outbreak and 12.5% were unwilling to accept the work. In addition, 8% of respondents reported that they had considered quitting their job, 54.4% reported their job was dangerous, and 50.1% of respondents perceived the severity of COVID-19 as high. Perceived threat and effectiveness of hospital response were associated with hospital employees' intention to work. CONCLUSIONS: Hospital workers are at the front line of the COVID-19 outbreak. This study highlighted hospital workers' perceived effectiveness of organizational response to the outbreak, and perceived threats were found to be important factors for whether they continue to work or not in the fight against the outbreak.


COVID-19 and Kidney Failure in the Acute Care Setting: Our Experience From Seattle


Virological assessment of SARS-CoV-2


Contribution of anosmia and dysgeusia for diagnostic of COVID-19 in outpatients


title: Testagem de rastreio e busca ativa de infectados assintomáticos pelo SARS-COV-2: avisão do planejamento em saúde pública/ Screening testing and active search for asymptomatic infected by SARS-COV-2: public health planning warning

text: Este artigo, tem como objetivo descrever evidências científicas da testagem para rastreamento de casos assintomáticos de Coronavírus. Examinaram-se artigos científicos, recomendações da Organização Mundial de Saúde e publicações em jornais. Conclui-se pela necessidade de adoção desta medida para o controle da pandemia e aponta-se para questões a serem respondidas para o planejamento do sistema de saúde. (AU)


Covid-19: UK prime minister announces relaxation of lockdown and social distancing rules


title: Expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 and proteases in COVID-19 patients: A potential role of cellular FURIN in the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2

text: Recently, a mini-review was published in the Medical Hypotheses journal by Usul Afsar entitled 2019-nCoV-SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infection: Cruciality of Furin and relevance with cancer. Previous studies have pointed out that disruption of the proteolytic cleavage of proteins can promote infectious and non-infectious diseases. The last few weeks have been marked by an important revelation concerning the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2. This new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a highly contagious and transmissible acute respiratory infectious disorder. SARS-CoV-2 is composed of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and structural proteins including Spike protein (S protein). Interestingly, the FURIN, one of the proproteins of the convertase family, plays a crucial role in the maturation of viral glycoproteins. In addition, many viruses including coronaviruses, exploit FURIN for the activation of their glycoproteins. Recent data indicate that SARS-CoV-2 enters human cells by binding to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2. Subsequently, the S protein is cleaved by transmembrane protease serine 2 with the help of FURIN which facilitates the entry of the virus into the cell after binding. Furthermore, it seems that FURIN is implicated in the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 and potentially in the increased rates of human-to-human transmission.


title: Leveraging a public-public partnership in Los Angeles County to address COVID-19 for children, youth, and families in underresourced communities

text: There is growing concern about the mental health and social impact of COVID-19 on underresourced children, youth, and families given widespread social disruption, school closures, economic impact, and loss of lives. In this commentary we describe how an existing public-public partnership between a large county mental health department and a state university responded to COVID-19. This partnership, originally designed to address workforce needs, rapidly pivoted to support providers through a trauma- and resilience-informed approach to mitigating adverse mental health effects among youth and families in Los Angeles County. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).


Coronavirus outbreaks: prevention and management recommendations


The implications of COVID-19 for the care of children living in residential institutions


title: DeepCOVIDExplainer: Explainable COVID-19 Diagnosis Based on Chest X-ray Images

text: Amid the coronavirus disease(COVID-19) pandemic, humanity experiences a rapid increase in infection numbers across the world. Challenge hospitals are faced with, in the fight against the virus, is the effective screening of incoming patients. One methodology is the assessment of chest radiography(CXR) images, which usually requires expert radiologist's knowledge. In this paper, we propose an explainable deep neural networks(DNN)-based method for automatic detection of COVID-19 symptoms from CXR images, which we call DeepCOVIDExplainer. We used 15,959 CXR images of 15,854 patients, covering normal, pneumonia, and COVID-19 cases. CXR images are first comprehensively preprocessed, before being augmented and classified with a neural ensemble method, followed by highlighting class-discriminating regions using gradient-guided class activation maps(Grad-CAM++) and layer-wise relevance propagation(LRP). Further, we provide human-interpretable explanations of the predictions. Evaluation results based on hold-out data show that our approach can identify COVID-19 confidently with a positive predictive value(PPV) of 91.6%, 92.45%, and 96.12%; precision, recall, and F1 score of 94.6%, 94.3%, and 94.6%, respectively for normal, pneumonia, and COVID-19 cases, respectively, making it comparable or improved results over recent approaches. We hope that our findings will be a useful contribution to the fight against COVID-19 and, in more general, towards an increasing acceptance and adoption of AI-assisted applications in the clinical practice.


title: Epitope based vaccine prediction for SARS-COV-2 by deploying immuno-informatics approach

text: A new virus termed SARS-COV-2 (causing COVID-19 disease) can exhibit a progressive, fatal impact on individuals. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the spread of the virus to be a global pandemic. Currently, there are over 1 million cases and over 100,000 confirmed deaths due to the virus. Hence, prophylactic and therapeutic strategies are promptly needed. In this study we report an epitope, ITLCFTLKR, which is biochemically fit to HLA allelic proteins. We propose that this could be used as a potential vaccine candidate against SARS-COV-2. A selected putative epitope and HLA-allelic complexes show not only better binding scores, but also RMSD values in the range of 0-1â¯Å. This epitope was found to have a 99.8% structural favorability as per Ramachandran-plot analysis. Similarly, a suitable range of IC50 values and population coverage was obtained to represent greater validation of T-cell epitope analysis. Stability analysis using MDWeb and half-life analysis using the ProtParam tool has confirmed that this epitope is well-selected. This new methodology of epitope-based vaccine prediction is fundamental and fast in application, ad can be economically beneficial and viable.


title: Hygienic and cosmetic care habits in polish women during COVID-19 pandemic

text: BACKGROUND: COVID-19 pandemic influences a lot of aspects of human life. Particularly, hygienic habits are affected. OBJECTIVES: Changes in washing and cosmetic standards during the pandemic toward the past are in the focus of our interest. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The questionnaire study was conducted anonymously in 140 women. The examination concerned pre- and during-pandemic routine hygiene activities such as hands washing, hair washing, bathing, the use of disinfectants, and use of specific type of cosmetics. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Compared were data before and during pandemic. Responders declared increased handwashing and taking shower after coming back home and after using local city transportation. We found also that increased use of disinfectants during COVID-19 pandemic. In contrary to that, number of people washing their hair decreased slightly. Work documents that profile of used cosmetics was changed; increasing hand cream use and decreasing in makeup cosmetics. Nearly, half of the respondents declare that they will maintain new habits also after the pandemic has ended.


title: Serum calcium as a biomarker of clinical severity and prognosis in patients with coronavirus disease 2019

text: The aim of this study was to investigate the correlations between serum calcium and clinical outcomes in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this retrospective study, serum calcium levels, hormone levels and clinical laboratory parameters on admission were recorded. The clinical outcome variables were also recorded. From February 10 to February 28, 2020, 241 patients were enrolled. Of these patients, 180 (74.7%) had hypocalcemia on admission. The median serum calcium levels were 2.12 (IQR, 2.04-2.20) mmol/L, median parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels were 55.27 (IQR, 42.73-73.15) pg/mL, and median 25-hydroxy-vitamin D (VD) levels were 10.20 (IQR, 8.20-12.65) ng/mL. The serum calcium levels were significantly positively correlated with VD levels (P =0.004) but negatively correlated with PTH levels (P =0.048). Patients with lower serum calcium levels (especially ≤2.0 mmol/L) had worse clinical parameters, higher incidences of organ injury and septic shock, and higher 28-day mortality. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, septic shock, and 28-day mortality were 0.923 (P <0.001), 0.905 (P =0.001), and 0.929 (P <0.001), respectively. In conclusion, serum calcium was associated with the clinical severity and prognosis of patients with COVID-19. Hypocalcemia may be associated with imbalanced VD and PTH levels.


title: Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Oncology Practices During Nationwide Lockdown Period: A Single Centre Experience and the Way Forward

text: Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a grave challenge to mankind as it doesn't appear to get controlled in the near future. Worldwide, health care centers are working more than their capacity with the scarcity of medical resources. Cancer patients are considered to be at higher risk of developing life-threatening complications from COVID-19 and at the same time treatment delays can lead to poorer oncological outcomes. Appropriate planning is therefore important to continue with cancer treatment services and simultaneously avoiding the risk of infection to the patients and healthcare staff and not allowing community transmission of viral infection. Methods and Results: We modified our practice measures in cancer patients receiving systemic therapy. Tele-consultations and use of electronic means, providing the best supportive care at or near home, and involvement of local/ family physicians were widely practiced. We minimised in-patient admissions, however, day-care chemotherapies were continued to provide optimum oncology services. Conclusions: Modified oncological practice measures need to be implemented as the pandemic seems to stay for a longer time.


Covid-19: WHO declares pandemic because of "alarming levels" of spread, severity, and inaction


Experience of telemedicine use in a big cohort of patients with rheumatoid arthritis during COVID-19 pandemic


title: Impact of COVID-19 outbreak on clinical practice and training of young gastroenterologists: A European survey

text: BACKGROUND: SARS-CoV-2 disease (COVID-19) is a major challenge for the healthcare system and physicians, imposing changes in daily clinical activity. AIMS: we aimed to describe what European trainees and young gastroenterologists know about COVID-19 and identify training gaps to implement educational programs. METHODS: A prospective web-based electronic survey was developed and distributed via e-mail to all members of the Italian Young Gastroenterologist and Endoscopist Association and to European representatives. RESULTS: One hundred and ninety-seven subjects participated in the survey, of whom 14 (7.1%) were excluded. The majority were gastroenterologists in training (123, 67.7%) working in institutions with COVID-19 inpatients (159, 86.9%), aged ≤30 years (113, 61.8%). The activity of Gastroenterology Units was restricted to emergency visits and endoscopy, with reductions of activities of up to 90%. 84.5% of participants felt that the COVID-19 outbreak impacted on their training, due to unavailability of mentors (52.6%) and interruption of trainee's involvement (66.4%). Most participants referred absence of training on the use of personal protective equipment, oxygen ventilation systems and COVID-19 therapies. CONCLUSION: COVID-19 outbreak significantly impacted on gastroenterologists' clinical activity. The resources currently deployed are inadequate, and therefore educational interventions to address this gap are warranted in the next future.


Glucose Monitoring and Diabetes Management in the Time of Coronavirus Disease 2019


title: Risques de contamination virale des soignants au cours d'une laparoscopie pendant la pandémie de la Covid-19./ [Risks of viral contamination in healthcare professionals during laparoscopy in the Covid-19 pandemic]

text: The Covid-19 pandemic has markedly changed our practices. This article analyses the risks of contamination among healthcare professionals (HCPs) during laparoscopic surgery on patients with Covid-19. Harmful effects of aerosols from a pneumoperitoneum with the virus present have not yet been quantified. Measures for the protection of HCPs are an extrapolation of those taken during other epidemics. They must still be mandatory to minimise the risk of viral contamination. Protection measures include personal protection equipment for HCPs, adaptation of surgical technique (method for obtaining pneumoperitoneum, filters, preferred intracorporeal anastomosis, precautions during the exsufflation of the pneumoperitoneum), and organisation of the operating room.


Tapia syndrome at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic: Lower cranial neuropathy following prolonged intubation


Covid-19 and community mitigation strategies in a pandemic


title: Potential spreading risks and disinfection challenges of medical wastewater by the presence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral RNA in septic tanks of Fangcang Hospital

text: The outbreak of coronavirus infectious disease-2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia raises the concerns of effective deactivation of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in medical wastewater by disinfectants. In this study, we evaluated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in septic tanks of Wuchang Cabin Hospital and found a striking high level of (0.5-18.7) × 103 copies/L after disinfection with sodium hypochlorite. Embedded viruses in stool particles might be released in septic tanks, behaving as a secondary source of SARS-CoV-2 and potentially contributing to its spread through drainage pipelines. Current recommended disinfection strategy (free chlorine ≥0.5 mg/L after at least 30 min suggested by World Health Organization; free chlorine above 6.5 mg/L after 1.5-h contact by China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) needs to be reevaluated to completely remove SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in non-centralized disinfection system and effectively deactivate SARS-CoV-2. The effluents showed negative results for SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA when overdosed with sodium hypochlorite but had high a level of disinfection by-product residuals, possessing significant ecological risks.


A Novel Use of Zip Lock Bags: Preserving A Sense of Humanity During COVID-19 Pandemic


Methanol Mass Poisoning Outbreak: A Consequence of COVID-19 Pandemic and Misleading Messages on Social Media


title: The effect of human mobility and control measures on the COVID-19 epidemic in China

text: The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak expanded rapidly throughout China. Major behavioral, clinical, and state interventions were undertaken to mitigate the epidemic and prevent the persistence of the virus in human populations in China and worldwide. It remains unclear how these unprecedented interventions, including travel restrictions, affected COVID-19 spread in China. We used real-time mobility data from Wuhan and detailed case data including travel history to elucidate the role of case importation in transmission in cities across China and to ascertain the impact of control measures. Early on, the spatial distribution of COVID-19 cases in China was explained well by human mobility data. After the implementation of control measures, this correlation dropped and growth rates became negative in most locations, although shifts in the demographics of reported cases were still indicative of local chains of transmission outside of Wuhan. This study shows that the drastic control measures implemented in China substantially mitigated the spread of COVID-19.


title: Effects of Social Grooming on Incivility in COVID-19

text: This study implements a computer-assisted content analysis to identify which social grooming factors reduce social media users' incivility when commenting or posting about the COVID-19 situation in South Korea. In addition, this study conducts semantic network analysis to interpret qualitatively how people express their thoughts. The findings suggest that social network size is a negative predictor of incivility. Moreover, Twitter users who have built larger networks and gained positive responses from others are less likely to use uncivil language. Lastly, linguistic choice among users is different depending on the size of their social network.


title: Dementia Care in Times of COVID-19: Experience at Fundació ACE in Barcelona, Spain

text: BACKGROUND: Fundació ACE is a non-profit organization providing care based on a holistic model to persons with cognitive disorders and their families for 25 years in Barcelona, Spain. Delivering care to this vulnerable population amidst the COVID-19 pandemic has represented a major challenge to our institution. OBJECTIVE: To share our experience in adapting our model of care to the new situation to ensure continuity of care. METHODS: We detail the sequence of events and the actions taken within Fundació ACE to swiftly adapt our face-to-face model of care to one based on telemedicine consultations. We characterize individuals under follow-up by the Memory Unit from 2017 to 2019 and compare the number of weekly visits in 2020 performed before and after the lockdown was imposed. RESULTS: The total number of individuals being actively followed by Fundació ACE Memory Unit grew from 6,928 in 2017 to 8,147 in 2019. Among those newly diagnosed in 2019, most patients had mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia (42% and 25%, respectively). Weekly visits dropped by 60% following the suspension of face-to-face activity. However, by April 24 we were able to perform 78% of the visits we averaged in the weeks before confinement began. DISCUSSION: We have shown that Fundació ACE model of care has been able to successfully adapt to a health and social critical situation as COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, we were able to guarantee the continuity of care while preserving the safety of patients, families, and professionals. We also seized the opportunity to improve our model of care.


title: Revisión narrativa sobre la respuesta inmunitaria frente a coronavirus: descripción general, aplicabilidad para SARS-COV-2 e implicaciones terapéuticas./ [Narrative review of the immune response against coronavirus: An overview, applicability for SARS-COV-2, and therapeutic implications]

text: The new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes a severe acute respiratory syndrome emerges in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It produces the aforementioned disease due to coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), and has led to a declaration of a world public health emergency by the World Health Organisation. This new SARS-CoV-2 virus could share characteristics and an immune response similar to those described for other coronavirus. Given its activity on the interferon pathway, and the manner in which it dysregulates innate immunity, the use of treatments directed at modulating or containing this could be of interest. A narrative review was made of the current evidence about immunity against coronavirus and its applicability to SARS-CoV-2. The physiopathogenesis is also described, along with the underlying leucocyte activity, with the intention of clarifying the possible usefulness of inflammatory biomarkers and the development of personalised treatments.


title: Using the spike protein feature to predict infection risk and monitor the evolutionary dynamic of coronavirus

text: BACKGROUND: Coronavirus can cross the species barrier and infect humans with a severe respiratory syndrome. SARS-CoV-2 with potential origin of bat is still circulating in China. In this study, a prediction model is proposed to evaluate the infection risk of non-human-origin coronavirus for early warning. METHODS: The spike protein sequences of 2666 coronaviruses were collected from 2019 Novel Coronavirus Resource (2019nCoVR) Database of China National Genomics Data Center on Jan 29, 2020. A total of 507 human-origin viruses were regarded as positive samples, whereas 2159 non-human-origin viruses were regarded as negative. To capture the key information of the spike protein, three feature encoding algorithms (amino acid composition, AAC; parallel correlation-based pseudo-amino-acid composition, PC-PseAAC and G-gap dipeptide composition, GGAP) were used to train 41 random forest models. The optimal feature with the best performance was identified by the multidimensional scaling method, which was used to explore the pattern of human coronavirus. RESULTS: The 10-fold cross-validation results showed that well performance was achieved with the use of the GGAP (g = 3) feature. The predictive model achieved the maximum ACC of 98.18% coupled with the Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) of 0.9638. Seven clusters for human coronaviruses (229E, NL63, OC43, HKU1, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2) were found. The cluster for SARS-CoV-2 was very close to that for SARS-CoV, which suggests that both of viruses have the same human receptor (angiotensin converting enzyme II). The big gap in the distance curve suggests that the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not clear and further surveillance in the field should be made continuously. The smooth distance curve for SARS-CoV suggests that its close relatives still exist in nature and public health is challenged as usual. CONCLUSIONS: The optimal feature (GGAP, g = 3) performed well in terms of predicting infection risk and could be used to explore the evolutionary dynamic in a simple, fast and large-scale manner. The study may be beneficial for the surveillance of the genome mutation of coronavirus in the field.


title: Third DIHARD Challenge Evaluation Plan

text: This paper introduces the third DIHARD challenge, the third in a series of speaker diarization challenges intended to improve the robustness of diarization systems to variation in recording equipment, noise conditions, and conversational domain. The challenge comprises two tracks evaluating diarization performance when starting from a reference speech segmentation (track 1) and diarization from raw audio scratch (track 2). We describe the task, metrics, datasets, and evaluation protocol.


Telephonic monitoring of patients on clozapine in the resource-poor setting during the COVID-19 pandemic


Preliminary Analysis of the Impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Outbreak on Italian Liver Transplant Programs


title: Strategies for the reuse of N95 and N99 respiratory masks during the COVID-19 pandemic

text: The COVID-19 pandemic presents a strain of unprecedented scale on health systems around the world. In order to reliably protect medical personnel, and thus to contain the spread of the pandemic, it is essential to provide N95 or N99 (European FFP2 or FFP3) respiratory masks (FFRs). Such masks are currently in extreme shortage: To guarantee their supply sufficiently and for all cases, it would absolutely necessary to reuse them. In recent years, the scientific literature has laid out various possibilities to disinfect the FFRs for their reuse several times. We identify the most promising disinfection methods for the current critical situation (internationally) and project further methods and modifications beyond these.


title: Endourology and Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia in COVID-19 Pandemic

text: The new disease COVID-19 pandemic has completely modified our lifestyle, changing our personal habits and daily activities and strongly our professional activity. Following World Health Organization (WHO) and health care authorities around the World recommendations, all elective surgeries from benign diagnose procedures must be postponed and imperatively continue working on emergent and oncological urgent pathologies. Surgical elective treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is not considered as a priority. During BPH endoscopic surgeries, urine and blood are mixed with the irrigation liquid implying a risk of viral presence. Furthermore, a steam and smoke bubble is being accumulated inside the bladder implying the risk of splashing and aerosols. The risks of other viral infections have been identified during endourological procedures and they are related to splashing events. Several studies observed 33-100% of splashing on goggles. All BPH endoscopic procedures must be postponed. In case of complete urinary obstruction, this event can be adequately treated by urethral or suprapubic catheter under local anesthesia. As soon as local COVID-19 prevalence decreases, endourological procedures could be restarted. As protocols are being validating around the World to redeem elective surgeries, a symptomatic obstructed patient could be operated knowing his COVID-19 status with a molecular PCR, a cleaned epidemiological interview with a normal preoperative protocol. If patient is COVID-19+, surgery must be delayed until complete recovery, because mortality could increase as Lei from Wuhan describes. Informed consent must include risks of complications related to COVID-19 disease. Surgery must be performed by an experienced surgeon in order to avoid increase of operating time and risks of complications. Surgical approach of BPH must be considered depending on availability of disposable material, infrastructure, and the epidemiological COVID-19 status of your area. The main aim is patients and healthcare staff safety.


title: Chinese herbal Huo-Gu Formula for treatment of steroid-associated osteonecrosis of femoral head: a 14-years follow-up of convalescent SARS patients

text: Purpose: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) reminds us of the SARS outbreak in 2003, and up to date, corticosteroid is commonly administrated to severe patients with COVID-19. Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) is a common disabling complication among convalescent SARS patients who received corticosteroid therapy. In China, a considerable number of convalescent SARS patients with steroid-associated ONFH had undergone conservative treatment by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and this study aims to evaluate the long-term results of a spleen-invigorating Huo-Gu Formula (HGF) therapy in these patients. Participants: and methods: A total of 33 convalescent SARS patients (nine males and 24 females) with bilateral steroid-associated ONFH (66 hips) were enrolled in this study. All patients received oral HGF therapy for six months when they were confirmed the diagnosis of steroid-associated ONFH. They had been regularly followed up at an interval of one year. Harris hip score and medical imaging modalities, including plain radiography, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging, were performed to evaluate the outcomes. Results: Based on average 14 years of follow-up of HGF therapy (ranging from six to 16 years), 38 hips (57%) among the 66 hips developed definite osteoarthritis, and 14 hips (26%) in 53 pre-collapse hips (ARCO stage I or II) progressed to femoral head collapse(ARCO stage III or IV). Only five patients (also five hips) underwent total hip arthroplasty, and the mean hip survival time was over 15 years by the Kaplan-Meier analysis. We observed a mean Harris hip score of 63 points, which represented the reserve of 55% in pain score and 70% in physical function score. The severity of groin pain was not correlated to the severity of osteoarthritis. Conclusion: Chinese herbal HGF therapy demonstrates beneficial effects on preventing femoral head collapse, delaying total hip arthroplasty (THA)surgery, and maintaining physical function in the treatment of steroid-associated ONFH. HGF therapy might be therefore a good alternative for the treatment of steroid-associated ONFH secondary to rheumatologic and infection diseases.


Tomar o no tomar «decisiones en caliente¼ respecto al tratamiento de la infección por SARS-CoV-2./ [Whether to make decisions "on the fly" regarding treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infection]


title: Differential mortality in COVID-19 patients from India and western countries

text: BACKGROUND AND AIMS: COVID-19 disease has been associated with disproportionate mortality amongst world population. We try to elucidate various reasons for lower mortality rate in the Indian subcontinent due to COVID-19 pandemic. METHOD: We carried out a comprehensive review of the literature using suitable keywords such as 'COVID-19', 'Pandemics', 'disease outbreaks' and 'India' on the search engines of PubMed, SCOPUS, Google Scholar and Research Gate in the month of May 2020 during the current COVID-19 pandemic and assessed mortality data. RESULTS: The mortality observed in Indian and south Asian subcontinent is lower than in the west. Multifactorial reasons indicated for this differential mortality due to COVID-19 have been described in the current literature. CONCLUSIONS: The effects of COVID-19 on the health of racial and ethnic minority groups are still emerging with disproportionate burden of illness and death amongst some black and ethnic minority groups. Overall the current COVID-19 related mortality appears to be lower in the health and resource challenged populous Indian subcontinent. Further scientific studies would be helpful to understand this disparity in mortality due to COVID-19 in the world population.


Applications of 3D Printing Technology to Address COVID-19-Related Supply Shortages


Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) With Relevance to Pediatrics


title: Systematic review of COVID-19 in children shows milder cases and a better prognosis than adults

text: AIM: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected hundreds of thousands of people. Data on symptoms and prognosis in children are rare. METHODS: A systematic literature review was carried out to identify papers on COVID-19, which is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), using the MEDLINE and Embase databases between January 1 and March 18, 2020. RESULTS: The search identified 45 relevant scientific papers and letters. The review showed that children have so far accounted for 1%-5% of diagnosed COVID-19 cases, they often have milder disease than adults and deaths have been extremely rare. Diagnostic findings have been similar to adults, with fever and respiratory symptoms being prevalent, but fewer children seem to have developed severe pneumonia. Elevated inflammatory markers were less common in children, and lymphocytopenia seemed rare. Newborn infants have developed symptomatic COVID-19, but evidence of vertical intrauterine transmission was scarce. Suggested treatment included providing oxygen, inhalations, nutritional support and maintaining fluids and electrolyte balances. CONCLUSIONS: The coronavirus disease 2019 has occurred in children, but they seemed to have a milder disease course and better prognosis than adults. Deaths were extremely rare.


How Should Rehabilitative Departments of Hospitals Prepare for Coronavirus Disease 2019?


title: SARS-CoV-2 and cardiovascular complications: From molecular mechanisms to pharmaceutical management

text: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), elicited by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, is a pandemic public health emergency of global concern. Other than the profound severe pulmonary damage, SARS-CoV-2 infection also leads to a series of cardiovascular abnormalities, including myocardial injury, myocarditis and pericarditis, arrhythmia and cardiac arrest, cardiomyopathy, heart failure, cardiogenic shock, and coagulation abnormalities. Meanwhile, COVID-19 patients with preexisting cardiovascular diseases are often at a much higher risk of increased morbidity and mortality. Up-to-date, a number of mechanisms have been postulated for COVID-19-associated cardiovascular damage including SARS-CoV-2 receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) activation, cytokine storm, hypoxemia, stress and cardiotoxicity of antiviral drugs. In this context, special attention should be given towards COVID-19 patients with concurrent cardiovascular diseases, and special cardiovascular attention is warranted for treatment of COVID-19.


On Patient Safety: COVID-19 Exposes the Dangerous State of Drug and Device Supply Chains


An invited commentary on: Optimizing response in surgical systems during and after COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons from China and the UK - Perspective. Zheng Liu (IJS-D-20-00464)


title: How to Detect and Track Chronic Neurologic Sequelae of Covid-19? Use of Auditory Brainstem Responses and Neuroimaging for Long-term Patient Follow-up

text: This review intends to provide an overview of the current knowledge on neurologic sequelae of COVID-19 and their possible etiology, and, based on available data, proposes possible improvements in current medical care procedures. We conducted a thorough review of the scientific literature on neurologic manifestations of COVID-19, the neuroinvasive propensity of known coronaviruses (CoV) and their possible effects on brain structural and functional integrity. It appears that around one third of COVID-19 patients admitted to intensive care units (ICU) for respiratory difficulties exhibit neurologic symptoms. This may be due to progressive brain damage and dysfunction triggered by severe hypoxia and hypoxemia, heightened inflammation and SARS-CoV-2 dissemination into brain parenchyma, as suggested by current reports and analyses of previous CoV outbreaks. Viral invasion of the brain may particularly target and alter brainstem and thalamic functions and, consequently, result in sensorimotor dysfunctions and psychiatric disorders. Moreover, data collected from other structurally homologous CoV suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infection may lead to brain cell degeneration and demyelination similar to multiple sclerosis (MS). Hence, current evidence warrants further evaluation and long-term follow-up of possible neurologic sequelae in COVID-19 patients. It may be particularly relevant to evaluate brainstem integrity in recovered patients, as it is suspected that this cerebral area may particularly be dysfunctional following SARS-CoV-2 infection. Because CoV infection can potentially lead to chronic neuroinflammation and progressive demyelination, neuroimaging features and signs of MS may also be evaluated in the long term in recovered COVID-19 patients.


title: Medical Students Are Not Essential Workers: Examining Institutional Responsibility During the COVID-19 Pandemic

text: In light of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) released a joint statement in March 2020 recommending an immediate suspension of medical student participation in direct patient contact. As graduating medical students who will soon begin residency, the authors fully support this recommendation. Though paid health care workers, like residents, nurses, and environmental services staff, are essential to the management of COVID-19 patients, medical students are not. Students' continued involvement in direct patient care will contribute to SARS-CoV-2 exposures and transmissions and will waste already limited personal protective equipment. By decreasing non-essential personnel in health care settings, including medical students, medical schools will contribute to national and global efforts to "flatten the curve."The authors also assert that medical schools are responsible for ensuring medical student safety. Without the protections provided to paid health care workers, students are uniquely disadvantaged within the medical hierarchy; these inequalities must be addressed before medical students are safely reintegrated into clinical roles. Although graduating medical students and institutional leadership may worry that suspending clinical rotations might prevent students from completing graduation requirements, the authors argue the ethical obligation to "flatten the curve" supersedes usual teaching responsibilities. Therefore, the authors request further guidance from the LCME and AAMC regarding curricular exemptions/alternatives and adjusted graduation timelines. The pool of graduating medical students affected by this pause in direct patient contact represents a powerful reserve, which may soon need to be utilized as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to challenge the U.S. health care infrastructure.


title: A Generic Framework and Library for Exploration of Small Multiples through Interactive Piling

text: Small multiples are miniature representations of visual information used generically across many domains. Handling large numbers of small multiples imposes challenges on many analytic tasks like inspection, comparison, navigation, or annotation. To address these challenges, we developed a framework and implemented a library called Piling.js for designing interactive piling interfaces. Based on the piling metaphor, such interfaces afford flexible organization, exploration, and comparison of large numbers of small multiples by interactively aggregating visual objects into piles. Based on a systematic analysis of previous work, we present a structured design space to guide the design of visual piling interfaces. To enable designers to efficiently build their own visual piling interfaces, Piling.js provides a declarative interface to avoid having to write low-level code and implements common aspects of the design space. An accompanying GUI additionally supports the dynamic configuration of the piling interface. We demonstrate the expressiveness of Piling.js with examples from machine learning, immunofluorescence microscopy, genomics, and public health.


title: Suspension and resumption of kidney transplant programs during the COVID-19 pandemic: perspectives from patients, caregivers and potential living donors-a qualitative study

text: BACKGROUND: Many countries have suspended kidney transplantation programs during the COVID-19 pandemic because of concerns for patient safety and the shortage of healthcare resources. This study aimed to describe patient, family member and potential donor perspectives on the suspension and resumption of kidney transplant programs due to COVID-19. METHODS: We conducted seven online focus groups involving 31 adult kidney transplant candidates (n=22), caregivers (n=4) and potential donors (n=5). Transcripts were analyzed thematically. RESULTS: We identified five themes: cascading disappointments and devastation (with subthemes of shattering hope, succumbing to defeat, regret and guilt); helplessness and vulnerability (fear of declining health, confronted by the threat of and change in dialysis, disconnected from healthcare, susceptibility to infective complications); stress from uncertainty (confusion from conflicting information, unable to forward plan), exacerbating burdens (incurring extra financial costs, intensifying caregiver responsibilities), and sustaining health through the delay (protecting eligibility, relying on social support, adapting to emerging modalities of care). CONCLUSIONS: During the suspension of kidney transplantation programs, patients felt medically vulnerable because of declining health, susceptibility to infection and reduced access to care. There is a need to address health vulnerabilities, disappointment, uncertainty and additional burdens arising from the suspension of kidney transplantation programs.


title: COVID-19 outbreak: Migration, effects on society, global environment and prevention

text: The COVID-19 pandemic is considered as the most crucial global health calamity of the century and the greatest challenge that the humankind faced since the 2nd World War. In December 2019, a new infectious respiratory disease emerged in Wuhan, Hubei province, China and was named by the World Health Organization as COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019). A new class of corona virus, known as SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) has been found to be responsible for occurrence of this disease. As far as the history of human civilization is concerned there are instances of severe outbreaks of diseases caused by a number of viruses. According to the report of the World Health Organization (WHO as of April 18 2020), the current outbreak of COVID-19, has affected over 2164111 people and killed more than 146,198 people in more than 200 countries throughout the world. Till now there is no report of any clinically approved antiviral drugs or vaccines that are effective against COVID-19. It has rapidly spread around the world, posing enormous health, economic, environmental and social challenges to the entire human population. The coronavirus outbreak is severely disrupting the global economy. Almost all the nations are struggling to slow down the transmission of the disease by testing & treating patients, quarantining suspected persons through contact tracing, restricting large gatherings, maintaining complete or partial lock down etc. This paper describes the impact of COVID-19 on society and global environment, and the possible ways in which the disease can be controlled has also been discussed therein.


title: Recommendation to Optimize Safety of Elective Surgical Care While Limiting the Spread of COVID-19: Primum Non Nocere

text: COVID-19 has drastically altered our lives in an unprecedented manner, shuttering industries, and leaving most of the country in isolation as we adapt to the evolving crisis. Orthopedic surgery has not been spared from these effects, with the postponement of elective procedures in an attempt to mitigate disease transmission and preserve hospital resources as the pandemic continues to expand. During these turbulent times, it is crucial to understand that while patient and care-providers safety is paramount, canceling or postponing essential surgical care is not without consequences, and may be irreversibly detrimental to a patient's health and quality of life in some cases. The optimal solution of how to effectively balance the resumption of standard surgical care while doing everything possible to limit the spread of COVID-19 is undetermined, and could include strategies such as social distancing, screening forms and tests including temperature screening, segregation of inpatient and outpatient teams, proper use of protective gear, and the use of ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) to provide elective, yet ultimately essential, surgical care while conserving resources and protecting the health of patients and health-care providers. Of importance, these recommendations do not and should not supersede evolving United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and relevant federal, state and local public health guidelines. Level of Evidence: Level V.


Síndrome de Guillain-Barré tras infección por SARS-CoV-2. Comentarios tras la publicación de 16 nuevos casos./ Síndrome de Guillain-Barré tras infección por SARS-CoV-2. Comentarios tras la publicación de 16 nuevos casos./ Guillain-Barré syndrome associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Comments after 16 published cases


title: C1-INH and the contact system in COVID-19

text: COVID-19 is frequently associated with severe systemic consequences, including vasculitis, a hyperinflammatory state and hypercoagulation. The mechanisms leading to these life-threatening abnormalities are multifactorial. Based on the analysis of publicly available interactomes, we propose that SARS-CoV-2 infection directly causes a deficiency in C1 esterase inhibitor (C1-INH), a pathogen-specific mechanism that may help explain significant systemic abnormalities in COVID-19 patients.


title: Modeling COVID-19 in Cape Verde Islands -- An application of SIR model

text: The rapid and surprised emergence of COVID-19, having infected three million and killed two hundred thousand people worldwide in less than five months, has led many experts to focus on simulating its propagation dynamics in order to have an estimated outlook for the not too distante future and so supporting the local and national governments in making decisions. In this paper, we apply the SIR model to simulating the propagation dynamics of COVID-19 on the Cape Verde Islands. It will be done firstly for Santiago and Boavista Islands, ant then for Cape Verde in general. The choice of Santiago rests on the fact that it is the largest island, with more than 50% of the Population of the country, whereas Boavista was chosen because it is the island where the first case of COVID-19 in Cape Verde was diagnosed. Observations made after the date of the simulations were carried out corroborates our projections.


title: Author´s answer to: "Effect of adacolumn® in ulcerative colitis with COVID-19"

text: We have read with interest the article published by Pérez et al., we really appreciate their interesting comments and would like to qualify some points. With the except of the clinical practice, currently there is no recommendation based on scientific evidence about the use of apheresis in the treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC), and even less in Crohn's disease (CD). However, the results obtained in the case of Pérez et al. in relation to systemic inflammation and pulmonary clinical improvement are very interesting from a pathophysiological and clinical point of view.


Creating dermatology guidelines for COVID-19: The pitfalls of applying evidence-based medicine to an emerging infectious disease


title: Assessing the risk of seizures with chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine therapy for COVID-19 in persons with epilepsy

text: BACKGROUND: The goal of this systematic review is to assess the published literature for seizure risk with chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine therapy in persons with and without epilepsy. With the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a desperate need for treatment against the SARS CoV-2 virus. Chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine is one proposed medication that has received substantial public attention. However, the package insert states that these medications may provoke seizures in patients with epilepsy, and this has resulted in increased questions and anxiety in the epilepsy community. METHODS: PubMed (1970 to March 27, 2020) and the Embase (1970 to March 27, 2020) were searched with the terms chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine and seizure or epilepsy, convulsions, or status epilepticus. Selected studies were reviewed, and the adverse drug reaction was classified. RESULTS: Only eleven out of 31 studies were deemed eligible for systematic analysis. For chloroquine, eligible studies were- one prospective study(n = 109), two case series(n = 6), and six case reports. The dose of chloroquine ranged between 100-500 mg/day, except in one patient with a seizure, who was after taking 1000 mg. For hydroxychloroquine, there was one prospective observational study(n = 631) and one case report. The clinical trials failed to find any significant relation between seizures and chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine. CONCLUSION: Although the package insert describes an increased risk of seizure, the systematic review highlights that such a statement is not supported by class I evidence. Clinicians, therefore, need to understand that data regarding this specific topic is limited to case series and case reports. There is no substantial evidence to suggest that these medications can increase seizure risk.


Rhabdomyolysis and Acute Renal Failure in an Adolescent with COVID-19


[Glucocorticoid for coronavirus disease 2019: a dilemma]


Hazardous Postoperative Outcomes of Unexpected COVID-19 Infected Patients: A Call for Global Consideration of Sampling All Asymptomatic Patients Before Surgical Treatment


title: Role of Pharmacists in COVID-19 Disease: A Jordanian Perspective

text: OBJECTIVES: The novel 2019 coronavirus outbreak that first appeared in Wuhan has quickly gained global attention, due to its high transmissibility and devastating clinical and economic outcomes. The aim of this study was to assess the possible roles of Jordanian pharmacists in minimizing the stage of community transmission. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey using Google forms targeting Jordanian pharmacists was conducted during March 2020 and distributed electronically by means of social media. Using the survey tool, we measured the pharmacists' knowledge, the educative activities they perform, and their perceptions regarding undertaking traditional and untraditional roles during the COVID-19 outbreak, as specified by the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP). Collected data were analyzed using SPSS version-19. RESULTS: Jordanian pharmacists (n = 449) reported performing various educative activities, and in general, they were knowledgeable about various aspects of the COVID-19 disease (median knowledge score: 20 [range, 13-25]), but certain gaps in knowledge were detected that must be addressed. Pharmacists had positive perceptions about both their traditional and untraditional roles specified by the FIP, the median perceptions score was 4 (range, 1-5). CONCLUSIONS: Jordanian pharmacists can be used to reduce community transmission of the outbreak. However, more actions are required to keep pharmacists knowledgeable with recent disease updates to enable them to perform their tasks effectively during times of crisis.


ACE2 activators for the treatment of COVID 19 patients


Når covid-19 møter afrikansk helsevesen


Tocilizumab for refractory severe immune checkpoint inhibitor-associated myocarditis


title: The challenges facing indigenous communities in Latin America as they confront the COVID-19 pandemic

text: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019) pandemic struck Latin America in late February and is now beginning to spread across the rural indigenous communities in the region, home to 42 million people. Eighty percent of this highly marginalized population is concentrated in Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru. Health care services for these ethnic groups face distinct challenges in view of their high levels of marginalization and cultural differences from the majority. Drawing on 30 years of work on the responses of health systems in the indigenous communities of Latin America, our group of researchers believes that countries in the region must be prepared to combat the epidemic in indigenous settings marked by deprivation and social disparity. We discuss four main challenges that need to be addressed by governments to guarantee the health and lives of those at the bottom of the social structure: the indigenous peoples in the region. More than an analysis, our work provides a practical guide for designing and implementing a response to COVID-19 in indigenous communities.


title: European consensus recommendations for neonatal and paediatric retrievals of positive or suspected COVID-19 patients

text: BACKGROUND: The 2020 novel coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2) pandemic necessitates tailored recommendations addressing specific procedures for neonatal and paediatric transport of suspected or positive COVID-19 patients. The aim of this consensus statement is to define guidelines for safe clinical care for children needing inter-facility transport while making sure that the clinical teams involved are sufficiently protected from SARS-CoV-2. METHODS: A taskforce, composed of members of the European Society of Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care (ESPNIC) Transport section and the European Society for Paediatric Research (ESPR), reviewed the published literature and used a rapid, two-step modified Delphi process to formulate recommendations regarding safety and clinical management during transport of COVID-19 patients. RESULTS: The joint taskforce consisted of a panel of 12 experts who reached an agreement on a set of 17 recommendations specifying pertinent aspects on neonatal and paediatric COVID-19 patient transport. These included: case definition, personal protective equipment, airway management, equipment and strategies for invasive and non-invasive ventilation, special considerations for incubator and open stretcher transports, parents on transport and decontamination of transport vehicles. CONCLUSIONS: Our consensus recommendations aim to define current best-practice and should help guide transport teams dealing with infants and children with COVID-19 to work safely and effectively. IMPACT: We present European consensus recommendations on pertinent measures for transporting infants and children in times of the coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2 /COVID-19) pandemic. A panel of experts reviewed the evidence around transporting infants and children with proven or suspected COVID-19. Specific guidance on aspects of personal protective equipment, airway management and considerations for incubator and open stretcher transports is presented. Based on scant evidence, best-practice recommendations for neonatal and paediatric transport teams are presented, aiming for the protection of teams and patients. We highlight gaps in knowledge and areas of future research.


COVID-19 Presenting as Acute Hepatitis


Maternal mortality from COVID-19 in Mexico


title: EPIC30M: An Epidemics Corpus Of Over 30 Million Relevant Tweets

text: Since the start of COVID-19, several relevant corpora from various sources are presented in the literature that contain millions of data points. While these corpora are valuable in supporting many analyses on this specific pandemic, researchers require additional benchmark corpora that contain other epidemics to facilitate cross-epidemic pattern recognition and trend analysis tasks. During our other efforts on COVID-19 related work, we discover very little disease related corpora in the literature that are sizable and rich enough to support such cross-epidemic analysis tasks. In this paper, we present EPIC30M, a large-scale epidemic corpus that contains 30 millions micro-blog posts, i.e., tweets crawled from Twitter, from year 2006 to 2020. EPIC30M contains a subset of 26.2 millions tweets related to three general diseases, namely Ebola, Cholera and Swine Flu, and another subset of 4.7 millions tweets of six global epidemic outbreaks, including 2009 H1N1 Swine Flu, 2010 Haiti Cholera, 2012 Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), 2013 West African Ebola, 2016 Yemen Cholera and 2018 Kivu Ebola. Furthermore, we explore and discuss the properties of the corpus with statistics of key terms and hashtags and trends analysis for each subset. Finally, we demonstrate the value and impact that EPIC30M could create through a discussion of multiple use cases of cross-epidemic research topics that attract growing interest in recent years. These use cases span multiple research areas, such as epidemiological modeling, pattern recognition, natural language understanding and economical modeling.


title: French consensus regarding precautions during tracheostomy and post-tracheostomy care in the context of COVID-19 pandemic

text: Tracheostomy post-tracheostomy care are regarded as at high risk for contamination of health care professionals with the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Considering the rapid spread of the infection, all patients in France must be considered as potentially infected by the virus. Nevertheless, patients without clinical or radiological (CT scan) markers of COVID-19, and with negative nasopharyngeal sample within 24h of surgery, are at low risk of being infected. Instructions for personal protection include specific wound dressings and decontamination of all material used. The operating room should be ventilated after each tracheostomy and the pressure of the room should be neutral or negative. Percutaneous tracheostomy is to be preferred over surgical cervicotomy in order to reduce aerosolization and to avoid moving patients from the intensive care unit to the operating room. Ventilation must be optimized during the procedure, to limit patient oxygen desaturation. Drug assisted neuromuscular blockage is advised to reduce coughing during tracheostomy tube insertion. An experienced team is mandatory to secure and accelerate the procedure as well as to reduce risk of contamination.


title: COVID-19 related home confinement in adults: weight gain risks and opportunities

text: As the global COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, over 90% of U.S. adult residents are confined to their homes, with restaurants, shops, schools, and workplaces shut down to prevent disease spread. While it is a priority to mitigate the immediate impact, one area of great concern is the long-term effects of this pandemic on weight management in adults. As evident from previous research, small changes in body weight in relatively short time periods can become permanent and lead to substantial weight gain over time(1). Considering that the current situation could last a total of several months, this extended home confinement could exacerbate the problem of obesity in adults by substantially contributing to or exceeding annual weight gain.


Covert COVID-19 complications: Continuing the use of evidence-based drugs to minimize potentially lethal indirect effects of the pandemic in stroke patients


title: Mobile phone data and COVID-19: Missing an opportunity?

text: This paper describes how mobile phone data can guide government and public health authorities in determining the best course of action to control the COVID-19 pandemic and in assessing the effectiveness of control measures such as physical distancing. It identifies key gaps and reasons why this kind of data is only scarcely used, although their value in similar epidemics has proven in a number of use cases. It presents ways to overcome these gaps and key recommendations for urgent action, most notably the establishment of mixed expert groups on national and regional level, and the inclusion and support of governments and public authorities early on. It is authored by a group of experienced data scientists, epidemiologists, demographers and representatives of mobile network operators who jointly put their work at the service of the global effort to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.


Die COVID-19-Pandemie: Arbeitsrecht im Krankenhaus in bewegten Zeiten


Peer mentoring for medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic via a social media platform


Does epicardial fat contribute to COVID-19 myocardial inflammation?


A spike with which to beat COVID-19?


Mortality surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic


A framework to deal with uncertainty in the age of COVID-19


Covid-19: protecting patients in hospital for neurorehabilitation and their therapists


Response: Acute Hyperglycemic Crises with Coronavirus Disease-19: Case Reports (Diabetes Metab J 2020;44:349-53)


title: Ethical surgical triage of patients with head and neck cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic

text: BACKGROUND: Coronavirus has serially overtaken our metropolitan hospitals. At peak, patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome may outnumber mechanical ventilators. In our Miami Hospital System, COVID-19 cases have multiplied for 4 weeks and elective surgery has been suspended. METHODS: An Otolaryngologic Triage Committee was created to appropriately allocate resources to patients. Hospital ethicists provided support. Our tumor conference screened patients for nonsurgical options. Patients were tested twice for coronavirus before performing urgent contaminated operations. N95 masks and protective equipment were conserved when possible. Patients with low-grade cancers were advised to delay surgery, and other difficult decisions were made. RESULTS: Hundreds of surgeries were canceled. Sixty-five cases screened over 3 weeks are tabulated. Physicians and patients expressed discomfort regarding perceived deviations from standards, but risk of COVID-19 exposure tempered these discussions. CONCLUSIONS: We describe the use of actively managed surgical triage to fairly balance our patient's health with public health concerns.


title: How to reduce the potential risk of vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2 during vaginal delivery?

text: The risk of vertical transmission during vaginal delivery in COVID-19 pregnant patients is currently a topic of debate. Obstetric norms on vaginal birth assistance to reduce the potential risk of perinatal infection should be promoted by ensuring that the risk of contamination from maternal anus and faecal material is reduced during vaginal delivery.


title: Clinical nursing and midwifery education in the pandemic age

text: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted clinical nursing and midwifery education. This disruption has long-term implications for the nursing and midwifery workforce and for future healthcare responses to pandemics. Solutions may include enhanced partnerships between schools of nursing and midwifery and health service providers and including schools of nursing and midwifery in preparedness planning. These suggestions notwithstanding, we call upon national and international nursing and midwifery bodies to study how to further the clinical education of nurses and midwives during pandemics and other times of crisis.


title: Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, a SARS-CoV-2 receptor, is upregulated by interleukin-6 via STAT3 signaling in synovial tissues

text: The severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread explosively worldwide and resulted in a pandemic of a new respiratory disease called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in 2020. Symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, malaise, cough, and in severe cases, pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (1,2).


Cardiovascular risks of hydroxychloroquine in treatment and prophylaxis of COVID-19 patients: A scientific statement from the Indian Heart Rhythm Society


title: Favipiravir: Pharmacokinetics and Concerns About Clinical Trials for 2019-nCoV Infection

text: An outbreak of 2019-nCoV infection has spread across the world. No specific antiviral drugs have been approved for the treatment of COVID-2019. In addition to the recommended antiviral drugs, such as interferon-É, lopinavir/ritonavir, ribavirin, and chloroquine phosphate, some clinical trials focusing on virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) inhibitors have been registered and initiated. Favipiravir, a purine nucleic acid analog and potent RdRp inhibitor approved for use in influenza, is also considered in several clinical trials. Herein, we summarized the pharmacokinetic characteristics of favipiravir and possible drug-drug interactions from the view of drug metabolism. We hope this will be helpful for the design of clinical trials for favipiravir in COVID-2019, as data regarding in vitro virus inhibition and efficacy in preclinical animal studies are still not available.


Is thromboprophylaxis with high-dose enoxaparin really necessary for COVID-19 patients? A new "prudent" randomised clinical trial


Activation of TLR7 and Innate Immunity as an Efficient Method Against COVID-19 Pandemic: Imiquimod as a Potential Therapy


Fever with rash in COVID-19: viral exanthema or secondary lesions?


title: Stepping up infection control measures in ophthalmology during the novel coronavirus outbreak: an experience from Hong Kong

text: PURPOSE: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has rapidly emerged as a global health threat. The purpose of this article is to share our local experience of stepping up infection control measures in ophthalmology to minimise COVID-19 infection of both healthcare workers and patients. METHODS: Infection control measures implemented in our ophthalmology clinic are discussed. The measures are based on detailed risk assessment by both local ophthalmologists and infection control experts. RESULTS: A three-level hierarchy of control measures was adopted. First, for administrative control, in order to lower patient attendance, text messages with an enquiry phone number were sent to patients to reschedule appointments or arrange drug refill. In order to minimise cross-infection of COVID-19, a triage system was set up to identify patients with fever, respiratory symptoms, acute conjunctivitis or recent travel to outbreak areas and to encourage these individuals to postpone their appointments for at least 14 days. Micro-aerosol generating procedures, such as non-contact tonometry and operations under general anaesthesia were avoided. Nasal endoscopy was avoided as it may provoke sneezing and cause generation of droplets. All elective clinical services were suspended. Infection control training was provided to all clinical staff. Second, for environmental control, to reduce droplet transmission of COVID-19, installation of protective shields on slit lamps, frequent disinfection of equipment, and provision of eye protection to staff were implemented. All staff were advised to measure their own body temperatures before work and promptly report any symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection, vomiting or diarrhoea. Third, universal masking, hand hygiene, and appropriate use of personal protective equipment (PPE) were promoted. CONCLUSION: We hope our initial experience in stepping up infection control measures for COVID-19 infection in ophthalmology can help ophthalmologists globally to prepare for the potential community outbreak or pandemic. In order to minimise transmission of COVID-19, ophthalmologists should work closely with local infection control teams to implement infection control measures that are appropriate for their own clinical settings.