title: Determination of Air Filter Anti-Viral Efficiency against an Airborne Infectious Virus

text: Recently, various studies have reported the prevention and treatment of respiratory infection outbreaks caused by lethal viruses. Consequently, a variety of air filters coated with antimicrobial agents have been developed to capture and inactivate virus particles in continuous airflow conditions. However, since aerosolized infectious viral-testing is inadvisable due to safety concerns, their anti-viral capability has only been tested by inserting the filters into liquid media, where infectious virus particles disperse. In this study a novel method of determining anti-viral performance of an air filter against airborne infectious viruses is presented. Initially, anti-viral air filter tests were conducted. Firstly, by an air-media test, in which the air filter was placed against an aerosolized non-infectious virus. Secondly, by a liquid-media test, in which the filter was inserted into a liquid medium containing a non-infectious virus. Subsequently, a correlation was established by comparing the susceptibility constants obtained between the two medium tests and an association was found for the air medium test with infectious virus. After ensuring the relationship did not depend on the virus species, the correlation was used to derive the results of the air-medium test from the results of the liquid-medium test.


title: The crucible of COVID-19: what the pandemic is teaching us about health research systems

text: The global health crisis created by COVID-19 is providing valuable insights into the strengths of our health research system and, perhaps even more clearly, displaying its weaknesses. Much of what is being shown so plainly in the current context is not truly new. We are being reminded that health research systems are slow and noisy as well as that there is a desire for research to inform decision-making, that researchers are great collaborators, and that the walls we are so quick to erect between health research and health practice are unhelpful facades. It is our hope that the clarity with which these issues are being demonstrated by COVID-19 might provide the impetus to address these challenges and seize these opportunities to improve our health research system, for the benefit for communities facing COVID-19 now, and for the benefit of us all in facing the further health challenges that are sure to come.


title: Characteristics of Health Care Personnel with COVID-19 - United States, February 12-April 9, 2020

text: As of April 9, 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had resulted in 1,521,252 cases and 92,798 deaths worldwide, including 459,165 cases and 16,570 deaths in the United States (1,2). Health care personnel (HCP) are essential workers defined as paid and unpaid persons serving in health care settings who have the potential for direct or indirect exposure to patients or infectious materials (3). During February 12-April 9, among 315,531 COVID-19 cases reported to CDC using a standardized form, 49,370 (16%) included data on whether the patient was a health care worker in the United States; including 9,282 (19%) who were identified as HCP. Among HCP patients with data available, the median age was 42 years (interquartile range [IQR] = 32-54 years), 6,603 (73%) were female, and 1,779 (38%) reported at least one underlying health condition. Among HCP patients with data on health care, household, and community exposures, 780 (55%) reported contact with a COVID-19 patient only in health care settings. Although 4,336 (92%) HCP patients reported having at least one symptom among fever, cough, or shortness of breath, the remaining 8% did not report any of these symptoms. Most HCP with COVID-19 (6,760, 90%) were not hospitalized; however, severe outcomes, including 27 deaths, occurred across all age groups; deaths most frequently occurred in HCP aged ≥65 years. These preliminary findings highlight that whether HCP acquire infection at work or in the community, it is necessary to protect the health and safety of this essential national workforce.


Reorganize and survive-a recommendation for healthcare services affected by COVID-19-the ophthalmology experience


title: Histopathology of COVID-19 pneumonia in two non-oncological, non-hospitalised cases as a reliable diagnostic benchmark

text: In lung cancer patients infected with COVID-19, pathological features are not easy to distinguish. This report presents detailed histopathological findings in two non-neoplastic subjects whose out-of-hospital deaths were caused by COVID-19 infection. These 'pure' cases differ in the time of presentation of symptoms, the phase of lung anatomopathological patterns (acute lung injury versus diffuse alveolar damage) and the mechanism of death. The results provide a valid diagnostic benchmark for evaluating the evolution of COVID-19 pneumonia.


title: Temperature and precipitation associate with Covid-19 new daily cases: A correlation study between weather and Covid-19 pandemic in Oslo, Norway

text: This study aims to analyze the correlation between weather and covid-19 pandemic in the capital city of Norway, Oslo. This study employed a secondary data analysis of covid-19 surveillance data from the Norwegian public health institute and weather data from the Norwegian Meteorological institute. The components of weather include minimum temperature (°C), maximum temperature (°C), temperature average (°C), normal temperature (°C), precipitation level (mm) and wind speed (m/s). Since normality was not fulfilled, a non-parametric correlation test was used for data analysis. Maximum temperature (r = 0.347; p = .005), normal temperature(r = 0.293; p = .019), and precipitation level (r = -0.285; p = .022) were significantly correlated with covid-19 pandemic. The finding might serve as an input to a strategy making in the prevention of covid-19 as the country prepare to enter into a new weather season.


Informal carers in severe mental health conditions: Issues raised by the United Kingdom SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Pandemic


Treating hypoxemic patients with SARS-COV-2 pneumonia: Back to applied physiology


title: COVID-19 Infection in Early Post-Operative Period after Liver Transplantation

text: We read the recently published article by Drs. Agopian, Verna and Goldberg (1) with great interest. The authors have provided an important assessment of liver transplant volumes across the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) regions from February to March of 2019 and 2020. The study revealed a significant center-based difference in volume of transplant particularly among centers located in the same metropolitan areas including New York City.


Coronavirus diaries: taking leave, but not holiday


The impact of heroin illicit market in the framework of COVID 19 pandemic


Recommandations pour les consultations d'ophtalmopédiatrie  épidémie Covid-19 : qui faut-il voir ? Qui peut-on reporter ?/ [Pediatric ophthalmology consultations during COVID-19 pandemic]


title: Press on COVID-19 and 2019-nCov in Spanish media: The role of digital media in times of confinement

text: Radio is the medium best adapted to crises This fact has been demonstrated throughout the history of Spain both in the 1981 coup d'état attempt and in the terrorist attacks of 11 March 2004 The question that arises then is if in the situation of lockdown suffered by the Spanish population due to the Covid-19 pandemic radio is also playing a relevant role This study comes to answer this question through a survey answered by 560 radio listeners during the lockdown The research has focused on knowing the listening habits, radio consumption, and the perception that these listeners have of the medium in this crisis The data indicate that the respondents have changed their listening habits and have increased their medium consumption During the lockdown, they are listening to the radio mostly in the living room, bedroom, and kitchen while cleaning or cooking They are also consuming more hours of radio, more stations (of a different ideological signs), and more shows For these listeners, radio is positioned as the medium that is best covering information about the coronavirus and the one that they consider most credible, closest, that most stimulates the imagination, reduces loneliness, and it is most distracting Overall, the results of this study allow us to conclude that the radio is once again playing a leading role in the coronavirus crisis, as it has occurred throughout the history of Spain


title: Impact of corticosteroid therapy on outcomes of persons with SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, or MERS-CoV infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis

text: We performed a meta-analysis to determine safety and efficacy of corticosteroids in SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV infections. We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Medline, WanFang Chinese database, and ZhiWang Chinese database using Boolean operators and search terms covering SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, OR MERS-CoV AND corticosteroids to find appropriate studies. Review Manager 5.3 was used to analyze results of meta-analysis. Observational studies were analyzed for quality using the modified Newcastle-Ottawa scale and randomized clinical trials, using the Jadad scale. Subjects were divided into those with severe-only and other (severe and not severe) cohorts based on published criteria. Efficacy endpoints studied included mortality, hospitalization duration, rates of intensive care unit (ICU) admission, use of mechanical ventilation, and a composite endpoint (death, ICU admission, or mechanical ventilation). We included 11 reports including 10 cohort studies and 1 randomized clinical trial involving 5249 subjects (2003-2020). Two discussed the association of corticosteroids and virus clearing and 10 explored how corticosteroids impacted mortality, hospitalization duration, use of mechanical ventilation, and a composite endpoint. Corticosteroid use was associated with delayed virus clearing with a mean difference (MD) = 3.78 days (95% confidence Interval [CI] = 1.16, 6.41 days; I2 = 0%). There was no significant reduction in deaths with relative Risk Ratio (RR) = 1.07 (90% CI = 0.81; 1.42; I2 = 80%). Hospitalization duration was prolonged and use of mechanical ventilation increased. In conclusion, corticosteroid use in subjects with SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV infections delayed virus clearing and did not convincingly improve survival, reduce hospitalization duration or ICU admission rate and/or use of mechanical ventilation. There were several adverse effects. Because of a preponderance of observational studies in the dataset and selection and publication biases our conclusions, especially regarding SARS-CoV-2, need confirmation in a randomized clinical trial. In the interim we suggest caution using corticosteroids in persons with COVID-19.


Modeling Marie Curie: How student nurses can contribute to evidence-based practice during the COVID-19 era


Mesenchymal stem cell therapy in severe COVID-19: A retrospective study of short-term treatment efficacy and side effects


title: Adolescents' Motivations to Engage in Social Distancing During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Associations With Mental and Social Health

text: PURPOSE: Reducing the spread of infection during the COVID-19 pandemic prompted recommendations for individuals to socially distance. Little is known about the extent to which youth are socially distancing, what motivations underlie their social distancing, and how these motivations are connected with amount of social distancing, mental health, and social health. Using a large sample of adolescents from across the United States, this study examined adolescents' motivations for social distancing, their engagement in social distancing, and their mental and social health. METHODS: Data were collected on March 29th and 30th, 2020, two weeks after COVID-19 was declared a national emergency in the United States. The sample consisted of 683 adolescents recruited using social media. A series of multiple linear regressions examined unique associations among adolescents' motivations to engage in social distancing, perceived amount of social distancing, anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, burdensomeness, and belongingness. RESULTS: Almost all respondents (98.1%) reported engaging in at least a little social distancing. The most commonly reported motivations for social distancing concerned social responsibility and not wanting others to get sick. Motivations concerning state or city lockdowns, parental rules, and social responsibility were associated with greater social distancing, whereas motivations concerning no alternatives were associated with less social distancing. Specific motivations for social distancing were differentially associated with adolescents' anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, burdensomeness, and belongingness. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding adolescents' motivations to engage in social distancing may inform strategies to increase social distancing engagement, reduce pathogen transmission, and identify individual differences in mental and social health during the COVID-19 pandemic.


Diabetes care during the acute phase of infection in ICU patients with specific attention to COVID-19 outbreak


Use of Renin-Angiotensin System Blockers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Early Guidance and Evolving Evidence


title: Rapid implementation of COVID-19 tracheostomy simulation training to increase surgeon safety and confidence

text: OBJECTIVE: To determine if rapid implementation of simulation training for anticipated COVID-19 tracheostomy procedures can increase physician confidence regarding procedure competency and use of enhanced personal protective equipment (PPE). METHODS: A brief simulation training exercise was designed in conjunction with the development of a COVID-19 Tracheostomy Protocol. The simulation training focused primarily on provider safety, pre and post-surgical steps and the proper use of enhanced PPE. Simulation training was performed in the simulation lab at the institution over 2 days. Pre and post self-evaluations were measured using standardized clinical competency questionnaires on a 5-point Likert Scale ranging from "No knowledge, unable to perform" up to "Highly knowledgeable and confident, independent." RESULTS: Physicians self-reported a significant increase in knowledge and competency immediately after completing the training exercise. Resident physicians increased from a mean score of 3.00 to 4.67, p-value 0.0041, mean increase 1.67 (CI 95% 0.81 to 2.52). Attending physicians increased from a mean score of 2.89 to 4.67, p-value 0.0002, mean increase 1.78 (CI 95% 1.14 to 2.42). Overall, all participants increased from a mean score of 3.06 to 4.71, p-value 0.0001, mean increase 1.65 (CI 95% 1.24 to 2.05). DISCUSSION: Implementation of this simulation training at our institution resulted in a significant increase in physician confidence regarding the safe performance of tracheostomy surgery in COVID-19 patients. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Adoption of standardized COVID-19 tracheostomy simulation training at centers treating COVID-19 patients may result in improved physician safety and enhanced confidence in anticipation of performing these procedures in real-life scenarios.


Social isolation as a means of reducing dysfunctional coronavirus anxiety and increasing psychoneuroimmunity


Coronavirus crisis hits ice-locked Arctic research expedition


title: Our Italian experience using lung ultrasound for identification, grading and serial follow-up of severity of lung involvement for management of patients with COVID-19

text: Lung ultrasound (LU) has rapidly become a tool for assessment of patients stricken by the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). Over the past two and a half months (January, February, and first half of March 2020) we have used this modality for identification of lung involvement along with pulmonary severity in patients with suspected or documented COVID-19 infection. Use of LU has helped us in clinical decision making and reduced the use of both chest x-rays and computed tomography (CT).


title: Health Belief Model-based Deep Learning Classifiers for Classifying COVID-19 Social Media Content to Examine Public Behaviors towards Physical Distancing

text: BACKGROUND: Public health authorities (PHAs) have been recommending interventions such as physical distancing and face masks, to curtail the transmission of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) within the community. Public perceptions towards such interventions are to be identified so that PHAs can effectively address valid concerns. The Health Belief Model (HBM) has been used to characterize user-generated content from social media during previous outbreaks, to understand health behaviors of people. OBJECTIVE: This study is aimed at developing and evaluating deep learning-based text classification models for classifying social media content posted during the COVID-19 outbreak, using the key four constructs of HBM. We specifically focus on content related to the physical distancing interventions put forth by PHAs. We intend to test the model with a real-world case study. METHODS: The dataset for this study was prepared by analyzing Facebook comments which were posted by the public in response to the COVID-19 posts of three PHAs: Ministry of Health of Singapore (MOH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Public Health England (PHE). The comments made in the context of physical distancing were manually classified with a Yes/No flag for each of the four HBM constructs: perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, perceived barriers, and perceived benefits. Using a curated dataset of 16,752 comments, gated recurrent unit (GRU) based recurrent neural network (RNN) models were trained and validated for text classification. Accuracy and binary cross-entropy loss were used for evaluating the model while specificity, sensitivity and balanced accuracy were the test metrics used for evaluating the classification results in the MOH case study. RESULTS: The HBM text classification models achieved mean accuracy rates of 0.92, 0.95, 0.91 and 0.94 for the constructs perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers, respectively. In the testing case study with MOH FB comments, specificity was above 96% for all HBM constructs. Sensitivity was 94.3% and 90.9% for perceived severity and perceived benefits while for perceived susceptibility and perceived barriers, it was 79.6% and 81.5%. The classification models were able to accurately predict the trends in the prevalence of the constructs for the examined days in the case study. CONCLUSIONS: The deep learning-based text classifiers developed in this study help in getting an understanding of the public perceptions towards physical distancing, using the four key constructs of HBM. Health officials can make use of the classification model to characterize health behaviors of public through the lens of social media. In future studies, we intend to extend the model for studying public perceptions on other important interventions of PHAs.


Case series of acute arthritis during COVID-19 admission


China plans mission to Earth's pet asteroid


World Affairs : CORONAVIRUS 感染爆発を招いた2つの病魔が文政権を追い込む : 韓国


title: Commentary on Ferguson, et al., "Impact of Non-pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) to Reduce COVID-19 Mortality and Healthcare Demand"

text: A recent manuscript (Ferguson et al. in Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand, Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, London, 2020. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf) from Imperial College modelers examining ways to mitigate and control the spread of COVID-19 has attracted much attention. In this paper, we will discuss a coarse taxonomy of models and explore the context and significance of the Imperial College and other models in contributing to the analysis of COVID-19.


Cytokine Storm: Is it the only major death factor in COVID-19 patients? Coagulation role


Colchicine as a possible therapeutic option in COVID-19 infection


The COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Dentistry


title: COVID-19 and Global Economic Growth: Policy Simulations with a Pandemic-Enabled Neoclassical Growth Model

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019/2020, authorities have used temporary ad-hoc policy measures, such as lockdowns and mass quarantines, to slow its transmission. However, the consequences of widespread use of these unprecedented measures are poorly understood. To contribute to the understanding of the economic and human consequences of such policy measures, we therefore construct a mathematical model of an economy under the impact of a pandemic, select parameter values to represent the global economy under the impact of COVID-19, and perform numerical experiments by simulating a large number of possible policy responses. By varying the starting date of the policy intervention in the simulated scenarios, we find that the most effective policy intervention occurs around the time when the number of active infections is growing at its highest rate -- that is, the results suggest that the most severe measures should only be implemented when the disease is sufficiently spread. The intensity of the intervention, above a certain threshold, does not appear to have a great impact on the outcomes in our simulations, due to the strongly concave relationship that we identify between production shortfall and infection rate reductions. Our experiments further suggest that the intervention should last until after the peak established by the reduced infection rate, which implies that stricter policies should last longer. The model and its implementation, along with the general insights from our policy experiments, may help policymakers design effective emergency policy responses in the face of a serious pandemic, and contribute to our understanding of the relationship between the economic growth and the spread of infectious diseases.


title: Trying Times and Trying Out Solutions: Intimate Partner Violence Screening and Support for Women Veterans During COVID-19

text: Initial reports indicate widespread increases in intimate partner violence (IPV) rates during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Women veterans are at particular risk for experiencing IPV, and the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting stay-at-home orders may be exacerbating this risk. IPV screening and intervention are an integral part of the care provided to women veterans in the Veteran's Health Administration (VHA). Current changes in healthcare delivery during COVID-19 may present challenges to the VHA's standard methods of initiating IPV screening and intervention with women veterans. We discuss the potential challenges VHA healthcare providers may be encountering when conducting routine IPV screening during the COVID-19 pandemic and when providing resources and support to women veterans experiencing IPV. We describe solutions to these challenges, including existing efforts led by the VHA IPV Assistance Program (IPVAP) as well as additional potential solutions. New ideas and partnerships will be critical for helping the VHA continue to assist women veterans experiencing IPV as the COVID-19 pandemic evolves. Though our focus is on women veterans and the VHA, the challenges and solutions we discuss are likely applicable to other populations experiencing IPV and other health care systems screening for IPV.


title: Strategies of strengthening the supporting role of science and technology in public health emergency: A case study on the COVID-19/ 中华医学科研管理杂志

text: Objective@#The research was aimed to discuss the role of science and technology research in the public health emergency response, and to provide theoretical support for building Healthy China, implementing the National Strategy of Innovation-Driven Development.@*Methods@#Take COVID-19 as an example, to sum up the characteristics and the function of science and technology research in the public health emergency prevention and control system.@*Results@#In order to make the scientific and technological research as the supporting system in public health emergency, we need to strengthen the basic research, to improve the research and development for controlling product with the independent intellectual property, to optimize the training system and evaluating system in public health technology, to deepen the international collaboration and to popularize the basic scientific knowledge.@*Conclusions@#Through systematically arrangement for disease controlling and prevention, for the industrial supporting, for the health improvement, for the talent training system and for the cooperation and the communication, we need to fasten the technological innovation for better preparation and responding to public health emergencies.


title: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Quality of Life for Women with Ovarian Cancer

text: PURPOSE: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented challenges for the oncology community. For people living with cancer, treatments are interrupted, surgeries cancelled and regular oncology evaluations rescheduled. People with cancer and their physicians must balance plausible fears of COVID-19 and cancer treatment with the consequences of delaying cancer care. We aim to evaluate the experience of women with ovarian cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Women with a current or prior diagnosis of ovarian cancer completed an online survey focusing on treatment interruptions and quality of life (QOL). QOL was measured with the Cancer Worry Scale and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. The survey was distributed through survivor networks and social media. Univariate and multivariable linear regression analysis were utilized to evaluate the effect of participant characteristics on QOL survey scores. RESULTS: Six hundred and three women, from 41 states, visited the survey website between March 30 and April 13, 2020 and 555 (92.0%) completed the survey. The median age was 58 years (range 20-85). Two hundred and seventeen participants (43.3%) were in active treatment at the time of survey completion. One hundred and seventy-five participants (33%) experienced a delay in some component of their cancer care. Ten (26.3%) of the 38 participants scheduled for surgery experienced a delay and 18 (8.3%) of the 217 participants scheuled for nonsurgical cancer treatment. One hundred and thirty-three participants (24.0%) had a delayed physician appointment, 84 (15.1%) laboratory test and 53 (9.6%) cancer related imaging. Among the cohort, 88.6% (489) reported significant cancer worry, 51.4% (285) borderline or abnormal anxiety and 26.5% (147) borderline or abnormal depression. On univariate analysis, age less than 65 years, being scheduled for cancer treatment or cancer surgery, delay in oncology care, self-described as immunocompromised and use of telemedicine were all associated with higher levels of cancer worry. Higher anxiety scores were associated with age less than 65 years and self-described as immunocompromised. Higher depression scores were associated with age less than 65 years, being scheduled for cancer surgery, delay in oncology care, self-described as immunocompromised and use of telemedicine. On multivariable linear regression analysis, age less than 65 and being self-described as immunocompromised were independently predictive of greater cancer worry, anxiety and depression and delay in cancer care was predictive of anxiety and depression. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 crisis is impacting care of ovarian cancer patients: surgeries, treatments, scheduled physician appointments, laboratory tests and imaging are cancelled or delayed. Younger age, presumed immunocompromise and delay in cancer care were associated with significantly higher levels of cancer worry, anxiety and depression. Providers must work with patients to balance competing risks of COVID-19 and cancer, recognizing that communication is a critical clinical tool to improve quality of life in these times.


title: Diagnostic strategies for SARS-CoV-2 infection and interpretation of microbiological results

text: BACKGROUND: To face the current COVID-19 pandemic, diagnostic tools are essential. It is recommended to use real-time RT-PCR for RNA viruses in order (a) to perform a rapid and accurate diagnostic, (b) to guide patient care and management and (c) to guide epidemiological strategies. Further studies are warranted to define the role of serological diagnosis and a possible correlation between serological response and prognosis. OBJECTIVES: The aim was to guide clinical microbiologists in the use of these diagnostic tests and clinicians in the interpretation of their results. SOURCES: A search of literature was performed through PubMed and Google Scholar using the keywords SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-2 molecular diagnosis, SARS-CoV-2 immune response, SARS-CoV-2 serology/antibody testing, coronavirus diagnosis. CONTENT: The present review discusses performances, limitations and use of current and future diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2. IMPLICATIONS: Real-time RT-PCR remains the reference method for diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection. On the other hand, notwithstanding its varying sensitivity according to the time of infection, serology represents a valid asset (a) to try to solve possible discrepancies between a highly suggestive clinical and radiological presentation and negative RT-PCR, (b) to solve discrepancies between different PCR assays and (c) for epidemiological purposes.


title: Extrapolation of mortality in COVID-19: Exploring the role of age, sex, co-morbidities and health-care related occupation

text: We used a publicly available data of 44,672 patients reported by China's centre for disease control to study the role of age, sex, co-morbidities and health-care related occupation on COVID-19 mortality. The data is in the form of absolute numbers and proportions. Using the percentages, retrospective synthetic data of 100 survivors and 100 deaths were generated using random number libraries so that proportions of ages, genders, co-morbidities, and occupations were constant as in the original data. Logistic regression of the four predictor factors of age, sex, co-morbidities and occupation revealed that only age and comorbidities significantly affected mortality. Sex and occupation when adjusted for other factors in the equation were not significant predictors of mortality. Age and presence of co-morbidities correlated negatively with survival with co-efficient of -1.23 and -2.33 respectively. Odds ratio (OR) for dying from COVID-19 for every 10-year increase in age was 3.4 compared to the previous band of 10 years. OR for dying of COVID-19 was 10.3 for the presence of any of the co-morbidities. Our findings could help in triaging the patients in the emergency room and emphasize the need to protect the elderly and those with comorbidities from getting exposed.


title: Coordinated responses of academic medical centres to pandemics: Sustaining medical education during COVID-19

text: Background: The Corona Virus Disease-19 (COVID-19) has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). We state the consolidated and systematic approach for academic medical centres in response to the evolving pandemic outbreaks for sustaining medical education.Discussion: Academic medical centres need to establish a 'COVID-19 response team' in order to make time-sensitive decisions while managing pandemic threats. Major themes of medical education management include leveraging on remote or decentralised modes of medical education delivery, maintaining the integrity of formative and summative assessments while restructuring patient-contact components, and developing action plans for maintenance of essential activities based on pandemic risk alert levels. These core principles must be applied seamlessly across the various fraternities of academic centres: undergraduate education, residency training, continuous professional development and research. Key decisions from the pandemic response teams that help to minimise major disruptions in medical education and to control disease transmissions include: minimising inter-cluster cross contaminations and plans for segregation within and among cohorts; reshuffling academic calendars; postponing or restructuring assessments.Conclusions: While minimising the transmission of the pandemic outbreak within the healthcare establishments is paramount, medical education and research activities cannot come to a standstill each time there is a threat of one.


COVID-19: Act First, Think Later


title: Facing SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in immunotherapy era

text: The spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) represents a worldwide sanitary emergency. The viral biology is only partially known, with some aspects in common with other coronaviruses, and the damage observed in the most severe cases is due to intense inflammation. Immunotherapy restores immunological activity against cancer cells and it has become a standard treatment for several cancers. We carried out an examination of available data on the effects exerted by both SARS-CoV-2 and the most widespread immunotherapy treatments on the immune system in order to hypothesize mechanisms underlying potential and mutual interaction. We provided an analysis of laboratory, clinical and therapeutic data related with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. We finally focused on implications of immunotherapy treatments in clinical practice.


title: Facing the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in the immunotherapy era

text: The spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) represents a worldwide sanitary emergency. The viral biology is only partially known, although it has some aspects in common with other coronaviruses, and the damage observed in the most severe cases is due to intense inflammation. Immunotherapy restores immunological activity against cancer cells and has become a standard treatment for several cancers. We carried out an examination of available data on the effects exerted by both SARS-CoV-2 and the most widespread immunotherapy treatments on the immune system in order to hypothesize mechanisms underlying potential and mutual interaction. We analyzed laboratory, clinical and therapeutic data related to SARS coronaviruses. We finally focused on the implications of immunotherapy treatments in clinical practice.


Emerging threats from zoonotic coronaviruses-from SARS and MERS to 2019-nCoV


PreScription: COVID-19 and Compounding Pharmacists


Potential role of artificial intelligence to address the COVID-19 outbreak-related mental health issues in India


Emergency Medical Services resource capacity and competency amid COVID-19 in the United States: Preliminary findings from a national survey


Type 1 diabetes and technology at time of COVID-19: A case report


[Ten hot issues of breast cancer under the novel coronavirus]


title: Serological assays for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), March 2020

text: BackgroundThe ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has major impacts on health systems, the economy and society. Assessing infection attack rates in the population is critical for estimating disease severity and herd immunity which is needed to calibrate public health interventions. We have previously shown that it is possible to achieve this in real time to impact public health decision making.AimOur objective was to develop and evaluate serological assays applicable in large-scale sero-epidemiological studies.MethodsWe developed an ELISA to detect IgG and IgM antibodies to the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We evaluated its sensitivity and specificity in combination with confirmatory microneutralisation (MN) and 90% plaque reduction neutralisation tests (PRNT90) in 51 sera from 24 patients with virologically confirmed COVID-19 and in age-stratified sera from 200 healthy controls.ResultsIgG and IgM RBD ELISA, MN and PRNT90 were reliably positive after 29 days from illness onset with no detectable cross-reactivity in age-stratified controls. We found that PRNT90 tests were more sensitive in detecting antibody than MN tests carried out with the conventional 100 tissue culture infectious dose challenge. Heparinised plasma appeared to reduce the infectivity of the virus challenge dose and may confound interpretation of neutralisation test.ConclusionUsing IgG ELISA based on the RBD of the spike protein to screen sera for SARS-CoV-2 antibody, followed by confirmation using PRNT90, is a valid approach for large-scale sero-epidemiology studies.


title: Patterns of endoscopy during COVID-19 pandemic: a global survey of interventional inflammatory bowel disease practice

text: Background/Aims: Performance of diagnostic or therapeutic endoscopic procedures in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients can be challenging during a viral pandemic; the main concerns being the safety and protection of patients and health care providers (HCP). The aim of this study is to identify endoscopic practice patterns and outcomes of IBD and coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) with a worldwide survey of HCP. Methods: The 20-item survey questionnaire was sent to physician members of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Special Interest Group in Interventional IBD, Chinese IBD Society Endoscopy Interest Group, and the China Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. Results: A total of 141 respondents submitted valid responses. Nighty-five respondents (67.9%) reported that at least 25% of their scheduled emergent endoscopic procedures were canceled or postponed during the pandemic. Fifty-six respondents (40.0%) have performed emergent endoscopy during the pandemic. A few respondents (9/140, 6.4%) estimated that more than 25% of their patients had worsened disease due to delayed or canceled emergent endoscopy procedures. More than 80% of respondents believed that personal protective equipment (PPE) for the endoscopy team, room sterilization, and pre-procedure screening of patients for COVID-19 were necessary. Out of 140 respondents, 16 (11.4%) reported that several of their patients had COVID-19. Eight clinicians (5.7%) reported that they or their endoscopy colleagues developed work-related COVID-19. Conclusions: Cancellation of elective and emergent endoscopy in IBD care during the pandemic was common. Few respondents reported that their patients' disease conditions worsened due to the cancellation of the endoscopy procedure. Most respondents voiced the need for proper PPE during the procedure regardless of patients' COVID-19 status and screening the patients for COVID-19.


Covid-19: "Unacceptable" that antibody test claims cannot be scrutinised, say experts


title: The impacts of viral inactivating methods on quantitative RT-PCR for COVID-19

text: OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to explore the effect of four virus inactivation methods on the rapid detection results of COVID-19 nucleic acid. METHODS: Collected samples of nasopharyngeal swabs from 2 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 at the First People's Hospital of Zhaoqing City, each of sample was divided into 5 groups (groupAâ¼E): A:Non-inactivated raw sample; B:75 % ethanol inactivation; C:56 â incubation for 30â¯min inactivation; D:65 â incubation for 10â¯min inactivation; E:Pre-inactivation using RNA virus special preservation fluid added into the sampling tube to treated the nasopharyngeal swab sample separately, using real-time fluorescent RT-PCR to detect the N gene of COVID-19 and the ORF1ab gene simultaneously. All the groups are diluted in 1:2, 1:4, 1:8 ratios. The objectives are to compare the effect of the varied inactivation method on CT(Cycle Threshold)results in PCR, conduct correlation and Bland-Altman analysis. RESULTS: For the N gene and ORF1ab gene, the CT values of 4 inactivated and Non-inactivated treatment were correlated (Pï¼0.001). The results of the four treatment methods and specimens without inactivated treatment have shown good consistency. CONCLUSION: The treatment of nasopharyngeal swab specimens using mentioned four inactivated methods had no significant effect on the subsequent detection of the new COVID-19 nucleic acid test. Lab test-persons can flexibly adopt pre-inactivation methods to ensure the accuracy of virus nucleic acid test results, meanwhile guarantee the safety of lab test-persons.


Compassionate use of others' immunity - understanding gut microbiome in Covid-19


Understanding pathways to death in patients with COVID-19


Risk of SARS-CoV-2 Diffusion when Performing Minimally Invasive Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic


title: Immune checkpoint inhibitors: a physiology-driven approach to the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019

text: Although confirmed cases of the deadly coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have exceeded 4.7 million globally, scientists are pushing forward with efforts to develop vaccines and treatments in an attempt to slow the pandemic and lessen the disease's damage. Although no proven effective therapies for treating patients with COVID-19 or for managing their complications currently exist, the rapidly expanding knowledge regarding severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and its interplay with hosts provides a significant number of potential drug targets and the potential to repurpose drugs already tested in other diseases. Herein, we report the biological rationale of immune-activating drugs and a brief summary of literature data on the potential therapeutic value of immune checkpoint inhibitors that have been recently tested beyond cancer treatment for their potential to restore cellular immunocompetence.


Coronavirus: home testing pilot launched in London to cut hospital visits and ambulance use


title: Managing patients with rheumatic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic: The French Society of Rheumatology answers to most frequently asked questions up to May 2020

text: BACKGROUND: Rheumatologists must contend with COVID-19 pandemic in the management of their patients and many questions have been raised on the use of both anti-inflammatory drugs and disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARD). The French Society of Rheumatology (SFR) selected the most critical ones to the daily practice of a rheumatologist and a group of 10 experts from SFR and Club Rheumatism and Inflammation (CRI) boards proposed responses based on the current knowledge of May 2020. METHODS: Following the availability of the first 18 questions and statements, 1400 individuals consulted the frequently asked questions between the March 31, 2020 and April 12, 2020. As a result, 16 additional questions were forwarded to the SFR, and answered by the board. An additional round of review by email and video conference was organized, which included updates of the previous statements. The scientific relevance of 5 of the questions led to their inclusion in this document. Each response received a final assessment on a scale of 0-10 with 0 meaning no agreement whatsoever and 10 being in complete agreement. The mean values of these votes for each question are presented as the levels of agreement (LoA) at the end of each response. This document was last updated on April 17, 2020. RESULTS: Based on current scientific literature already published, in most circumstances, there is no contraindication to the initiation or continuation of anti-inflammatory drugs as well as DMARDs. If signs suggestive of infection (coronavirus or other) occur, treatments should be discontinued and resumed, if necessary, after 2 weeks without any symptoms. Only, some signals suggest that people taking an immunosuppressive dose of corticosteroid therapy are at greater risk of developing severe COVID-19. Intra-articular injections of glucocorticoids are allowed when there is no reasonable therapeutic alternative, and providing that precautions to protect the patient and the practitioner from viral contamination are adopted, included appropriate information to the patient. CONCLUSIONS: Currently available data on managing patients with rheumatic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic are reassuring and support continuing or initiating symptomatic as well as specific treatments of these diseases, the main target of their management remaining their appropriate control, even during this pandemic.


title: SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) structural and evolutionary dynamicome: Insights into functional evolution and human genomics

text: The pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has challenged the speed at which laboratories discover the viral composition and study health outcomes. The small ~30-kb ssRNA genome of coronaviruses makes them adept at cross-species spread, but also enable a robust understanding of all the proteins the viral genome encodes. We have employed protein modeling, molecular dynamic simulations, evolutionary mapping, and 3D printing to gain a full proteome- and dynamicome-level understanding of SARS-CoV-2. We established the Viral Integrated Structural Evolution Dynamic Database (VIStEDD at prokoplab.com/vistedd) to facilitate future discoveries and educational use. Here, we highlight the use of VIStEDD for nsp6, nucleocapsid (N), and spike (S) surface glycoprotein. For both nsp6 and N, we found highly conserved surface amino acids that likely drive protein-protein interactions. In characterizing viral S protein, we developed a quantitative dynamics cross-correlation matrix to gain insights into its interactions with the angiotensin I-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2)-solute carrier family 6 member 19 (SLC6A19) dimer. Using this quantitative matrix, we elucidated 47 potential functional missense variants from genomic databases within ACE2/SLC6A19/transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2), warranting genomic enrichment analyses in SARS-CoV-2 patients. These variants had ultralow frequency but existed in males hemizygous for ACE2. Two ACE2 noncoding variants (rs4646118 and rs143185769) present in ~9% of individuals of African descent may regulate ACE2 expression and may be associated with increased susceptibility of African Americans to SARS-CoV-2. We propose that this SARS-CoV-2 database may aid research into the ongoing pandemic.


title: A Comprehensive Updated Review on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19

text: This literature review aims to provide a comprehensive current summary of the pathogenesis, clinical features, disease course, host immune responses, and current investigational antiviral and immunomodulatory pharmacotherapies to facilitate the development of future therapies and measures for prevention and control.


COVID-19 and ischemic heart disease emergencies: What cardiac surgery should expect?


title: Predicting turning point, duration and attack rate of COVID-19 outbreaks in major Western countries

text: In this paper, we employed a segmented Poisson model to analyze the available daily new cases data of the COVID-19 outbreaks in the six Western countries of the Group of Seven, namely, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, UK and USA. We incorporated the governments' interventions (stay-at-home advises/orders, lockdowns, quarantines and social distancing) against COVID-19 into consideration. Our analysis allowed us to make a statistical prediction on the turning point (the time that the daily new cases peak), the duration (the period that the outbreak lasts) and the attack rate (the percentage of the total population that will be infected over the course of the outbreak) for these countries.


title: Aerosol formation during non-contact "air-puff"tonometry and its significance for prevention of COVID-19

text: To evaluate the aerosol concentration(PM2 5,PM10 0 and aerosol particle number) formation in non-contact "air-puff"tonometry and provide suggestions for medical workers to take appropriate daily protection during the prevalence of 2019-nCoV ;;Methods;A cross-sectional study was carried out in this study Thirty healthy subjects were enrolled on February 22, 2020 at Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University The intraocular pressure (IOP) was measured by non-contact "air-puff"tonometer in the ophthalmic consulting room and the hall with or without masks PM2 5, PM10 0 and aerosol particles were recorded by air quality detector The cumulative effects of IOP measurement, PM2 5, PM10 0 and aerosol particle number were analyzed, and the aerosol density of subjects with and without masks was compared ;;Results;The PM2 5, PM10 0 and aerosol particles produced by the non-contact "air-puff"tonometry and increased with the increase of spray times The IOP curves of 60 eyes of 30 subjects were measured respectively in two environments of medical consulting room and medical institution hall It was found that PM2 5, pm10 0 and particle number fluctuated and increased with the increase of IOP measurement person times, showing cumulative effect, and the accumulation speed of aerosol density in hall was faster than that in consulting room The density of PM2 5 and PM10 0 produced without gauze mask were (53 417±2 306) and (85 350±3 488) μg/m3, which were higher than those of (50 567±0 862) and (80 617±1 463) μg/m3with gauze mask The differences were statistically significant (<italic>P</italic>=0 028, 0 019) ;;Conclusions;Aerosol can be produced by non-contact "air-puff"tonometer spraying, and it fluctuates with the increase of spraying times, showing a cumulative effect The aerosol accumulation is higher in the hall with insufficient air circulation And more aerosol can be produced without gauze mask ;


title: Aerosol formation during non-contact 'air-puff' tonometry and its significance for prevention of COVID-19

text: Objective To evaluate the aerosol concentration(PM2 5,PM10 0 and aerosol particle number) formation in non-contact 'air-puff' tonometry and provide suggestions for medical workers to take appropriate daily protection during the prevalence of 2019-nCoV Methods A cross-sectional study was carried out in this study Thirty healthy subjects were enrolled on February 22, 2020 at Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University The intraocular pressure (IOP) was measured by non-contact 'air-puff' tonometer in the ophthalmic consulting room and the hall with or without masks PM2 5, PM10 0 and aerosol particles were recorded by air quality detector The cumulative effects of IOP measurement, PM2 5, PM10 0 and aerosol particle number were analyzed, and the aerosol density of subjects with and without masks was compared Results The PM2 5, PM10 0 and aerosol particles produced by the non-contact 'air-puff' tonometry and increased with the increase of spray times The IOP curves of 60 eyes of 30 subjects were measured respectively in two environments of medical consulting room and medical institution hall It was found that PM2 5, pm10 0 and particle number fluctuated and increased with the increase of IOP measurement person times, showing cumulative effect, and the accumulation speed of aerosol density in hall was faster than that in consulting room The density of PM2 5 and PM10 0 produced without gauze mask were (53 417±2 306) and (85 350±3 488) μg/m 3 , which were higher than those of (50 567±0 862) and (80 617±1 463) μg/m 3 with gauze mask The differences were statistically significant ( P =0 028, 0 019) Conclusions Aerosol can be produced by non-contact 'air-puff' tonometer spraying, and it fluctuates with the increase of spraying times, showing a cumulative effect The aerosol accumulation is higher in the hall with insufficient air circulation And more aerosol can be produced without gauze mask


text: Objective@#To evaluate the aerosol concentration(PM2 5,PM10 0 and aerosol particle number) formation in non-contact &quot;air-puff&quot;tonometry and provide suggestions for medical workers to take appropriate daily protection during the prevalence of 2019-nCoV @*Methods@#A cross-sectional study was carried out in this study Thirty healthy subjects were enrolled on February 22, 2020 at Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University The intraocular pressure (IOP) was measured by non-contact &quot;air-puff&quot;tonometer in the ophthalmic consulting room and the hall with or without masks PM2 5, PM10 0 and aerosol particles were recorded by air quality detector The cumulative effects of IOP measurement, PM2 5, PM10 0 and aerosol particle number were analyzed, and the aerosol density of subjects with and without masks was compared @*Results@#The PM2 5, PM10 0 and aerosol particles produced by the non-contact &quot;air-puff&quot;tonometry and increased with the increase of spray times The IOP curves of 60 eyes of 30 subjects were measured respectively in two environments of medical consulting room and medical institution hall It was found that PM2 5, pm10 0 and particle number fluctuated and increased with the increase of IOP measurement person times, showing cumulative effect, and the accumulation speed of aerosol density in hall was faster than that in consulting room The density of PM2 5 and PM10 0 produced without gauze mask were (53 417±2 306) and (85 350± 3 488) &#x03BC;g/m3, which were higher than those of (50 567±0 862) and (80 617±1 463) &#x03BC;g/m3 with gauze mask The differences were statistically significant (P=0 028, 0 019) @*Conclusions@#Aerosol can be produced by non-contact &quot;air-puff&quot;tonometer spraying, and it fluctuates with the increase of spraying times, showing a cumulative effect The aerosol accumulation is higher in the hall with insufficient air circulation And more aerosol can be produced without gauze mask


Redeployment of Dermatologists During COVID-19: Implementation of a Large-Scale, Centralized Results Management Infrastructure


title: Meta-analysis investigating the relationship between clinical features, outcomes, and severity of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pneumonia

text: OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate the relationship between clinical characteristics, outcomes and the severity of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pneumonia. METHODS: We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis using PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases to assess the clinical characteristics and outcomes of confirmed COVID-19 cases and compared severe (ICU) and nonsevere (non-ICU) groups. RESULTS: We included 12 cohort studies including 2,445 patients with COVID-19. Compared with nonsevere (non-ICU) patients, severe (ICU) disease was associated with a smoking history (Pâ¯=â¯.003) and comorbidities including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (ORâ¯=â¯5.08, P < .001), diabetes (ORâ¯=â¯3.17, P < .001), hypertension (ORâ¯=â¯2.40, P < .001), coronary heart disease (ORâ¯=â¯2.66, P < .001), cerebrovascular diseases (ORâ¯=â¯2.68, Pâ¯=â¯.008), and malignancy (OR=2.21, Pâ¯=â¯.040). We found significant differences between the 2 groups for fever, dyspnea, decreased lymphocyte and platelet counts, and increased leukocyte count, C-creative protein, procalcitonin, lactose dehydrogenase, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, creatinine kinase, and creatinine levels (P < .05). Significant differences were also observed for multiple treatments (P < .05). Patients in the severe (ICU) group were more likely to have complications and had a much higher mortality rate and lower discharge rate than those with nonsevere (non-ICU) disease (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: Investigation of clinical characteristics and outcomes of severe cases of COVID-19 will contribute to early prediction, accurate diagnosis, and treatment to improve the prognosis of patients with severe illness.


Deep impact of COVID-19 in the healthcare of Latin America: the case of Brazil


title: Can orthodontic care be safely delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic? Recommendations from a literature review

text: Data sources Five electronic databases were searched: COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19-2020); PubMed; MEDLINE; Scopus; and Google Scholar.Study selection Titles of articles and abstracts were identified during the electronic database searches and then screened for relevance. Publications up until the date of the literature search, 19th March 2020, were used. All articles with the appropriate topics pertaining to COVID-19, dentistry, orthodontics, and infection control were used irrespective of language. The author did not state whether they were selective about the study type or design of articles screened. References of these articles were also screened, via the 'snowballing technique', to obtain as much relevant literature as possible.Data extraction and synthesis Articles were reviewed by the cited author, and one research assistant. Data was extracted from each study by this author. The data obtained was combined and discussed narratively, in a qualitative manner. Due to the broad scope of studies included, it was not possible to conduct a meta-analysis.Results This literature review describes ways to reduce COVID-19 transmission in orthodontic practice. Overview of the literature discusses how the virus may be transmitted in the orthodontic setting: by human-human contact; saliva; aerosols; and use of orthodontic instruments. The literature review illustrates the need for optimum infection control and strict cleaning, detailing surface disinfection and sterilisation protocols. It highlights the need for optimal hand hygiene, use of high standard personal protective equipment, controlling aerosol use, appropriate ventilation, and treating emergency cases only.Conclusions While there are no known cases of COVID-19 cross-transmission within the dental setting currently reported, utmost vigilance is required by orthodontic professionals to reduce risk of transmission. The review reinforces crucial measures required to reduce infection, as outlined in the Results section above. While the virus is still emerging, knowledge is limited and as such it is difficult to provide robust and complete recommendations for best practice. Further studies to inform future practice are required.


Aerosol Barrier Hood for Use in the Management of Critically Ill Adults With COVID-19


COVID-19 Reveals Urgent Need to Strengthen the World Health Organization


COVID-19 affecting our world


title: Aspectos epidemiológicos, clínicos e anatomopatológicos do linfoma folicular em cães/ Epidemiological, clinical and pathological aspects of follicular lymphoma in dogs

text: Linfomas foliculares são uma rara forma de distúrbio linfoproliferativo descrita em medicina veterinária. Juntamente com a não reconhecida ocorrência dos linfomas de Hodgkin em cães, essa é a maior diferença acerca de linfoma entre humanos e cães. O objetivo deste artigo é descrever os achados epidemiológicos, clínicos e anatomopatológicos vistos em cinco cães com linfoma folicular. Destes, dois eram machos (40%) e três eram fêmeas (60%). A idade dos cães afetados variou de 11 a 13 anos. Quatro dos cinco (80%) cães eram de raça pura e um (20%) não tinha raça definida. Todos os cães apresentaram linfadenomegalia generalizada e esplenomegalia, o que incluiu os casos como linfoma multicêntrico. Na necropsia, os linfonodos e o baço demonstraram um padrão nodular à superfície de corte, caracterizado por dezenas a centenas de nódulos brancos, multifocais ou coalescentes e de tamanhos variáveis. Na superfície natural do baço, frequentemente (4/5, 80%), havia miríades de pontos brancos, multifocais ou coalescentes, de tamanhos variáveis. Na histopatologia, os tumores foram confirmados como linfomas foliculares. Todos os casos eram Grau III, sendo dois (40%) incluídos como IIIa e outros três (60%) como IIIb. Em um caso (1/5, 20%), o linfoma folicular foi considerado como IIIb variante de pequenos centroblastos semelhantes aos linfócitos neoplásicos vistos no linfoma de Burkitt. Os linfomas foram validados como tendo origem em células B através da imuno-histoquímica, utilizando anticorpos anti-CD20. Os casos de linfomas foliculares descritos comportaram-se de forma agressiva e levaram os pacientes à morte.(AU)


title: Preparedness and Best Practice in Radiology Department for COVID-19 and Other Future Pandemics of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection

text: The COVID-19 global pandemic has emerged as an unprecedented health care crisis. To reduce risks of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 transmission in the Radiology Department, this article describes measures to increase the preparedness of Radiology Department, such as careful screening of staff and patients, thorough disinfection of equipments and rooms, appropriate use of personal protection equipment, and early isolation of patients with incidentally detected computed tomography findings suspicious for COVID-19. The familiarity of radiologists with clinical and imaging manifestations of COVID-19 pneumonia and their prognostic implications is essential to provide optimal care to patients.


Metabolomics to Predict Antiviral Drug Efficacy in COVID-19


Challenges in the Practice of Sexual Medicine in the Time of COVID-19 in Portugal


title: Pharmacologic Therapy for COVID-19 Infection

text: The COVID-19 pandemic has focused attention on issues of epidemiology, public health, and vaccine design. I submit that attention to COVID-19 pharmacologic therapy needs similar emphasis, including identifying any existing medications that can be repurposed to treat COVID-19 patients.


Weathering the Cytokine Storm in Susceptible Patients with Severe SARS-CoV-2 Infection


Prevalence and fatality rates of COVID-19: What are the reasons for the wide variations worldwide?


Sexually transmitted infections during the COVID-19 outbreak: comparison of patients referring to the service of sexually transmitted diseases during the sanitary emergency with those referring during the common practice


Covid-19: Medical leaders call for urgent action to make hospitals safe


Decrease in Neurosurgical Program Volume During COVID-19: Residency Programs Must Adapt


Implications of social distancing in Brazil in the COVID-19 pandemic


The pros and cons of traditional Chinese medicines in the treatment of COVID-19


Low incidence of COVID-19 in children and adolescent post-liver transplant at a Latin American reference center


Performing abdominal surgery during the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan, China: a single-centred, retrospective, observational study


title: Special considerations for elderly patients with head and neck cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic

text: Elderly patients with head and neck cancer are at increased risk of adverse outcomes during and after treatment of head and neck cancer. COVID-19 severity and mortality can be expected to be significantly greater in elderly patients with head and neck cancer, given that increased age, comorbidities, and presence of malignancy are known risk factors for disease severity and mortality in patients with COVID-19. Therefore, their management requires multidisciplinary consensus and patient input. A thorough geriatric assessment, which has been shown to be beneficial prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, could be particularly helpful in this patient population with the added dimension of COVID-19 risk. In many cases, prudent treatment plan modification may allow for overall best outcomes. Furthermore, recruitment of social services and, when appropriate, palliative care, may allow for optimal management of these patients.


title: Isolation, characterization and anti-inflammatory mechanism of probiotics in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophages

text: Probiotics are known to modulate gut microbiota, intestinal barrier function and host immune response, but due to the species and strain specific response their mechanisms are not clearly understood. Thus, the present study was designed to isolate, assess the anti-inflammatory potential and underlying modulatory mechanisms of indigenous probiotics in murine macrophage cell line, RAW 264.7. Forty lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were isolated from different sources and monitored for their anti-inflammatory potential against lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced inflammatory stress employing RAW 264.7 cells. Among these isolates, only four LAB isolates exhibited more than 90% nitric oxide inhibition and possessed the probiotic attributes. Further, these selected LAB isolates reduced the level of pro-inflammatory cytokines, TNF-α, IL-1ß and IL-6, inhibited the phosphorylation of Mitogen Activated Protein Kinases (MAPKs) i.e. p38 MAPK, ERK1/2 and SAPK/JNK and expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in LPS stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. The in vitro analysis suggested that the selected probiotic isolates attenuated the LPS-induced inflammation by downregulating MAPK pathway vis-a-vis inhibiting COX-2 and can be employed as anti-inflammatory agents in various inflammatory diseases.


title: Fighting the COVID-19 Infodemic: Modeling the Perspective of Journalists, Fact-Checkers, Social Media Platforms, Policy Makers, and the Society

text: With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the political and the medical aspects of disinformation merged as the problem got elevated to a whole new level to become the first global infodemic. Fighting this infodemic is ranked second in the list of the most important focus areas of the World Health Organization, with dangers ranging from promoting fake cures, rumors, and conspiracy theories to spreading xenophobia and panic. Addressing the issue requires solving a number of challenging problems such as identifying messages containing claims, determining their check-worthiness and factuality, and their potential to do harm as well as the nature of that harm, to mention just a few. Thus, here we design, annotate, and release to the research community a new dataset for fine-grained disinformation analysis that (i)focuses on COVID-19, (ii) combines the perspectives and the interests of journalists, fact-checkers, social media platforms, policy makers, and society as a whole, and (iii) covers both English and Arabic. Finally, we show strong evaluation results using state-of-the-art Transformers, thus confirming the practical utility of the annotation schema and of the dataset.


Challenges for Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research in the Era of COVID-19


title: An epidemiological study of laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases admitted in a tertiary care hospital of Pune, Maharashtra

text: Background: India has reported more than 70,000 cases and 2000 deaths. Pune is the second city in the Maharashtra state after Mumbai to breach the 1000 cases. Total deaths reported from Pune were 158 with a mortality of 5.7%. To plan health services, it is important to learn lessons from early stage of the outbreak on course of the disease in a hospital setting. Objectives: To describe the epidemiological characteristics of the outbreak of COVID-19 in India from a tertiary care hospital. Methods: This was a hospital-based cross-sectional study which included all admitted laboratory confirmed COVID19 cases from March 31, to April 24, 2020. The information was collected in a predesigned pro forma which included sociodemographic data, duration of stay, family background, outcome, etc., by trained staff after ethics approval. Epi Info7 was used for data analysis. Results: Out of the total 197 cases, majority cases were between the ages of 31-60 years with slight male preponderance. Majority of these cases were from the slums. Breathlessness was the main presenting symptom followed by fever and cough. More than 1/5th of patients were asymptomatic from exposure to admission. The case fatality rate among the admitted cases was 29.4%. Comorbidity was one of the significant risk factors for the progression of disease and death (odds ratio [OR] = 16.8, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 7.0 - 40.1, P < 0.0001). Conclusion: Mortality was higher than the national average of 3.2%; comorbidity was associated with bad prognosis.


title: A First Look at Android Applications in Google Play related to Covid-19

text: Due to the convenience of access-on-demand to information and business solutions, mobile apps have become an important asset in the digital world. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, app developers have joined the response effort in various ways by releasing apps that target different user bases (e.g., all citizens or journalists), offer different services (e.g., location tracking or diagnostic-aid), provide generic or specialized information, etc. While many apps have raised some concerns by spreading misinformation or even malware, the literature does not yet provide a clear landscape of the different apps that were developed. In this study, we focus on the Android ecosystem and investigate Covid-related Android apps. In a best-effort scenario, we attempt to systematically identify all relevant apps and study their characteristics with the objective to provide a first taxonomy of Covid-related apps, broadening the relevance beyond the implementation of contact tracing. Overall, our study yields a number of empirical insights that contribute to enlarge the knowledge on Covid-related apps: (1) Developer communities contributed rapidly to the Covid-19, with apps released as early as February 2020; (2) Covid-related apps deliver digital tools to users (e.g., health diaries), serve to broadcast information to users (e.g., spread statistics), and collect data from users (e.g., for tracing); (3) Covid-related apps are less complex than standard apps; (4) they generally do not seem to leak sensitive data; (5) in the majority of cases, Covid-related apps are released by entities with past experience on the market, mostly official government entities or public health organizations.


title: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery in University Hospitals in Germany: Results of a Nationwide Survey

text: BACKGROUND: The purpose of the present study was to assess the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on orthopaedic and trauma surgery departments in university hospitals in Germany in order to clarify current challenges. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, an online-based anonymous survey was conducted within the Convention of University Professors of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery in Germany from April 3 to April 11, 2020. A bipolar 5-point Likert scale (with possible responses of "totally disagree," "rather disagree," "neutral," "rather agree," and "totally agree") was applied. Fifty-two (69.3%) of 75 clinic directors participated. RESULTS: Communication and cooperation with the government, hospital administration, and other departments during the COVID-19 pandemic were mainly perceived as appropriate. However, only 7 respondents (13.7%) totally agreed or rather agreed with the statement that the authorities are supporters of orthopaedic and trauma surgery departments. Substantial financial and personnel changes in orthopaedic and trauma surgery departments of university hospitals were reported, resulting in an average reduction of 49.4% in operating room capacity and an expected 29.3% loss of revenue. In addition, 14.7% of physicians were reallocated from orthopaedic and trauma surgery to other care-delivery environments. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrated that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on orthopaedic and trauma surgery departments in German university hospitals. Distinct structural and financial effects were noted. Nevertheless, the present study demonstrates the commitment of our specialty to overcome the pandemic by providing competent personnel as well as close cooperation with the hospital administration and other departments. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: To our knowledge, this is the first Germany-wide survey among the heads of orthopaedic and trauma surgery departments in university hospitals on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey results may help to inform system-wide decision-making in Germany, in Europe, and beyond.


title: Predicting financial markets with Google Trends and not so random keywords

text: We check the claims that data from Google Trends contain enough data to predict future financial index returns. We first discuss the many subtle (and less subtle) biases that may affect the backtest of a trading strategy, particularly when based on such data. Expectedly, the choice of keywords is crucial: by using an industry-grade backtesting system, we verify that random finance-related keywords do not to contain more exploitable predictive information than random keywords related to illnesses, classic cars and arcade games. We however show that other keywords applied on suitable assets yield robustly profitable strategies, thereby confirming the intuition of Preis et al. (2013)


title: COVID-19 and the 5G Conspiracy Theory: Social Network Analysis of Twitter Data

text: BACKGROUND: Since the beginning of December 2019, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world, which has led to increased discussions across online platforms. These conversations have also included various conspiracies shared by social media users. Amongst them, a popular theory has linked 5G to the spread of COVID-19, leading to misinformation and the burning of 5G towers in the United Kingdom. The understanding of the drivers of fake news and quick policies oriented to isolate and rebate misinformation are keys to combating it. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to develop an understanding of the drivers of the 5G COVID-19 conspiracy theory and strategies to deal with such misinformation. METHODS: This paper performs a social network analysis and content analysis of Twitter data from a 7-day period (Friday, March 27, 2020, to Saturday, April 4, 2020) in which the #5GCoronavirus hashtag was trending on Twitter in the United Kingdom. Influential users were analyzed through social network graph clusters. The size of the nodes were ranked by their betweenness centrality score, and the graph's vertices were grouped by cluster using the Clauset-Newman-Moore algorithm. The topics and web sources used were also examined. RESULTS: Social network analysis identified that the two largest network structures consisted of an isolates group and a broadcast group. The analysis also revealed that there was a lack of an authority figure who was actively combating such misinformation. Content analysis revealed that, of 233 sample tweets, 34.8% (n=81) contained views that 5G and COVID-19 were linked, 32.2% (n=75) denounced the conspiracy theory, and 33.0% (n=77) were general tweets not expressing any personal views or opinions. Thus, 65.2% (n=152) of tweets derived from nonconspiracy theory supporters, which suggests that, although the topic attracted high volume, only a handful of users genuinely believed the conspiracy. This paper also shows that fake news websites were the most popular web source shared by users; although, YouTube videos were also shared. The study also identified an account whose sole aim was to spread the conspiracy theory on Twitter. CONCLUSIONS: The combination of quick and targeted interventions oriented to delegitimize the sources of fake information is key to reducing their impact. Those users voicing their views against the conspiracy theory, link baiting, or sharing humorous tweets inadvertently raised the profile of the topic, suggesting that policymakers should insist in the efforts of isolating opinions that are based on fake news. Many social media platforms provide users with the ability to report inappropriate content, which should be used. This study is the first to analyze the 5G conspiracy theory in the context of COVID-19 on Twitter offering practical guidance to health authorities in how, in the context of a pandemic, rumors may be combated in the future.


title: COVID-19 and Iranian Medical Students; A Survey on Their Related-Knowledge, Preventive Behaviors and Risk Perception

text: BACKGROUND: Since December 2019, a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) began its journey around the world. Medical students, as frontline healthcare workers, are more susceptible to be infected by the virus. The aim of this study was to assess COVID-19 related knowledge, self-reported preventive behaviors and risk perception among Iranian medical students within the first week after the onset of the outbreak in Iran. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted from 26th to 28th of February, 2020. Participants were Iranian medical students (5th-7th year) whose knowledge, preventive behaviors and risk perceptions of COVID-19 were assessed using an online questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 26 questions including 15 items about COVID-19 related knowledge, 9 items regarding preventive measures and 2 items about COVID-19 risk perception. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were shown to be satisfactory. RESULTS: A total of 240 medical students completed the questionnaire. The mean age of participants was 23.67 years. The average of correct answers of knowledge was 86.96%; and 79.60% had high level of related knowledge. The average rate of practicing preventive behaviors was 94.47%; and 94.2% had high level of performance in preventive behaviors. The cumulative score of risk perception was 4.08 out of 8 which was in moderate range. Risk perception was significantly different between stagers and interns and between those being trained in emergency room (ER) and non-ER wards. There was a significant negative correlation between preventive behaviors and risk perception. CONCLUSION: We found a high level of COVID-19 related knowledge and self-reported preventive behaviors and moderate risk perception among Iranian medical students.


title: Eficacia de los pulsos de corticoides en pacientes con síndrome de liberación de citocinas inducido por infección por SARS-CoV-2

text: INTRODUCTION: Cytokine storm syndrome (CSS) is a serious complication of COVID-19 patients Treatment is tocilizumab The use of glucocorticoids (GC) is controversial In other very similar CSS, such as macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) and hemophagocytic syndrome (HFS), the main treatment are corticosteroids Our objective is to evaluate the efficacy of GC in the CSS by COVID-19 PATIENTS: We included 92 patients with CSS associated to COVID-19 who received GC, GC, and tocilizumab and only tocilizumab We determine CSS markers We evaluated mortality, intubation, and a combined variable RESULTS: In all cases the percentages of events were lower in the group of patients with GC was administered The hazard ratio of the final variables with GC versus the group in which only tocilizumab was administered was lower as CGs were considered, with statistical significance for survival DISCUSSION: The early use of GC pulses could control SLC, with a lower requirement to use tocilizumab and a decrease in events such as intubation and death


title: Eficacia de los pulsos de corticoides en pacientes con síndrome de liberación de citocinas inducido por infección por SARS-CoV-2./ Eficacia de los pulsos de corticoides en pacientes con síndrome de liberación de citocinas inducido por infección por SARS-CoV-2./ Effectiveness of corticoid pulses in patients with cytokine storm syndrome induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection

text: INTRODUCTION: Cytokine storm syndrome (CSS) is a serious complication of COVID-19 patients. Treatment is tocilizumab. The use of glucocorticoids (GC) is controversial. In other very similar CSS, such as macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) and hemophagocytic syndrome (HFS), the main treatment are corticosteroids. Our objective is to evaluate the efficacy of GC in the CSS by COVID-19. PATIENTS: We included 92 patients with CSS associated to COVID-19 who received GC, GC, and tocilizumab and only tocilizumab. We determine CSS markers. We evaluated mortality, intubation, and a combined variable. RESULTS: In all cases the percentages of events were lower in the group of patients with GC was administered. The hazard ratio of the final variables with GC versus the group in which only tocilizumab was administered was lower as CGs were considered, with statistical significance for survival. DISCUSSION: The early use of GC pulses could control SLC, with a lower requirement to use tocilizumab and a decrease in events such as intubation and death.


title: [Application and thinking of health standards related to public health in prevention and control of coronavirus disease 2019]

text: Objective: To systematically analyze the basic characteristics and contents of the current health standards for infectious disease, environmental health, school health and disinfection in the context of COVID-19 prevention and control, and provide support for the further optimization of epidemic prevention and control guidelines and reference for the revision and improvement of related health standards. Methods: Public health standards used in COVID-19 prevention and control were selected for a systematic comparison with "The Plan of COVID19 Prevention and Control" (the 6th Edition) and other epidemic prevention and control guidelines from the perspectives of application scope and technical elements. Results: The current standards of public health are with scientificity, timeliness and feasibility. The application scope and technical elements of the current public health standards basically meet the needs of the prevention and control of COVID-19 epidemic, but the public health standardization system still needs improvement, and some public health standards need to be revised. Conclusions: The implementation of current public health standards can provide strong technical support for the prevention and control of COVID-19 epidemic. The experience obtained from COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control might promote the further improvement of the health standardization system.


title: Coronavirus disease 2019 among pregnant Chinese women: case series data on the safety of vaginal birth and breastfeeding

text: OBJECTIVE: To assess whether vaginal secretions and breast milk of women with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) contain severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). DESIGN: Single centre cohort study. SETTING: Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei province, China. POPULATION: We studied 13 SARS-CoV-2-infected pregnant women diagnosed between 31 January and 9 March 2020. METHODS: We collected clinical data, vaginal secretions, stool specimens and breast milk from SARS-CoV-2-infected women during different stages of pregnancy and collected neonatal throat and anal swabs. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: We assessed viral presence in different biosamples. RESULTS: Of the 13 women with COVID-19, five were in their first trimester, three in their second trimester and five in their third trimester. Of the five women in their third trimester who gave birth, all delivered live newborns. Among these five deliveries, the primary adverse perinatal outcomes included premature delivery (n = 2) and neonatal pneumonia (n = 2). One of nine stool samples was positive; all 13 vaginal secretion samples, and five throat swabs and four anal swabs collected from neonates, were negative for the novel coronavirus. However, one of three samples of breast milk was positive by viral nucleic acid testing. CONCLUSIONS: In this case series of 13 pregnant women with COVID-19, we observed negative viral test results in vaginal secretion specimens, suggesting that a vaginal delivery may be a safe delivery option. However, additional research is urgently needed to examine breast milk and the potential risk for viral contamination. TWEETABLE ABSTRACT: New evidence for the safety of vaginal delivery and breastfeeding in pregnant women infected with SARS-CoV-2, positive viral result in a breast-milk sample.


title: A mathematical model reveals the influence of population heterogeneity on herd immunity to SARS-CoV-2

text: Despite various levels of preventive measures, in 2020 many countries have suffered severely from the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus. We show that population heterogeneity can significantly impact disease-induced immunity as the proportion infected in groups with the highest contact rates is greater than in groups with low contact rates. We estimate that if R 0 = 2.5 in an age-structured community with mixing rates fitted to social activity then the disease-induced herd immunity level can be around 43%, which is substantially less than the classical herd immunity level of 60% obtained through homogeneous immunization of the population. Our estimates should be interpreted as an illustration of how population heterogeneity affects herd immunity, rather than an exact value or even a best estimate.


Covid-19: medical students and FY1 doctors to be given early registration to help combat covid-19


Is the gingival sulcus a potential niche for SARS-Corona virus-2?


International Expansion of a Novel SARS-CoV-2 Mutant


title: COVID-19's impact on the atmospheric environment in the Southeast Asia region

text: Since its first appearance in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019, the new coronavirus (COVID-19) has evolved a global pandemic within three months, with more than 4.3 million confirmed cases worldwide until mid-May 2020. As many countries around the world, Malaysia and other southeast Asian (SEA) countries have also enforced lockdown at different degrees to contain the spread of the disease, which has brought some positive effects on natural environment. Therefore, evaluating the reduction in anthropogenic emissions due to COVID-19 and the related governmental measures to restrict its expansion is crucial to assess its impacts on air pollution and economic growth. In this study, we used aerosol optical depth (AOD) observations from Himawari-8 satellite, along with tropospheric NO2 column density from Aura-OMI over SEA, and ground-based pollution measurements at several stations across Malaysia, in order to quantify the changes in aerosol and air pollutants associated with the general shutdown of anthropogenic and industrial activities due to COVID-19. The lockdown has led to a notable decrease in AOD over SEA and in the pollution outflow over the oceanic regions, while a significant decrease (27% - 30%) in tropospheric NO2 was observed over areas not affected by seasonal biomass burning. Especially in Malaysia, PM10, PM2.5, NO2, SO2, and CO concentrations have been decreased by 26-31%, 23-32%, 63-64%, 9-20%, and 25-31%, respectively, in the urban areas during the lockdown phase, compared to the same periods in 2018 and 2019. Notable reductions are also seen at industrial, suburban and rural sites across the country. Quantifying the reductions in major and health harmful air pollutants is crucial for health-related research and for air-quality and climate-change studies.


SARS-CoV-2-Induced Vomiting as Onset Symptom in a Patient with COVID-19


title: How does Working from Home Affect Developer Productivity? -- A Case Study of Baidu During COVID-19 Pandemic

text: Nowadays, working from home (WFH) has become a popular work arrangement due to its many potential benefits for both companies and employees (e.g., increasing job satisfaction and retention of employees). Many previous studies have investigated the impact of working from home on the productivity of employees. However, most of these studies usually use a qualitative analysis method such as survey and interview, and the studied participants do not work from home for a long continuing time. Due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a large number of companies asked their employees to work from home, which provides us an opportunity to investigate whether working from home affects their productivity. In this study, to investigate the difference of developer productivity between working from home and working onsite, we conduct a quantitative analysis based on a dataset of developers' daily activities from Baidu Inc, one of the largest IT companies in China. In total, we collected approximately four thousand records of 139 developers' activities of 138 working days. Out of these records, 1,103 records are submitted when developers work from home due to COVID-19 pandemic. We find that WFH has both positive and negative impacts on developer productivity in terms of different metrics, e.g., the number of builds/commits/code reviews. We also notice that working from home has different impacts on projects with different characteristics including programming language, project type/age/size. For example, working from home has a negative impact on developer productivity for large projects. Additionally, we find that productivity varies for different developers. Based on these findings, we get some feedbacks from developers of Baidu and understand some reasons why WFH has different impacts on developer productivity.


Spinal anesthesia in COVID-19 patients, more research is needed


title: Non-conservative Boltzmann-type kinetic equations for multi-agent systems with label switching

text: In this paper, we propose a Boltzmann-type kinetic description of mass-varying interacting multi-agent systems. Our agents are characterised by a microscopic state, which changes due to their mutual interactions, and by a label, which identifies a group to which they belong. Besides interacting within and across the groups, the agents may change label according to a state-dependent Markov-type jump process. Hence the mass of each group is not conserved. We derive general kinetic equations for the joint interaction/label switching processes in each group. Moreover, for prototypical birth/death dynamics we characterise the transient and equilibrium kinetic distributions of the groups via a Fokker-Planck asymptotic analysis. Finally, we introduce and discuss, both analytically and numerically, a new model for the contagion of infectious diseases with quarantine based on this non-conservative kinetic framework.


title: Simulated Sunlight Rapidly Inactivates SARS-CoV-2 on Surfaces

text: Previous studies have demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 is stable on surfaces for extended periods under indoor conditions. In the present study, simulated sunlight rapidly inactivated SARS-CoV-2 suspended in either simulated saliva or culture media and dried on stainless steel coupons. Ninety percent of infectious virus was inactivated every 6.8 minutes in simulated saliva and every 14.3 minutes in culture media when exposed to simulated sunlight representative of the summer solstice at 40°N latitude at sea level on a clear day. Significant inactivation also occurred, albeit at a slower rate, under lower simulated sunlight levels. The present study provides the first evidence that sunlight may rapidly inactivate SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces, suggesting that persistence, and subsequently exposure risk, may vary significantly between indoor and outdoor environments. Additionally, these data indicate that natural sunlight may be effective as a disinfectant for contaminated nonporous materials.


title: Use of a portable computed tomography scanner for chest imaging of COVID-19 patients in the urgent care at a tertiary cancer center

text: To present a novel use of a portable computed tomography (CT) for evaluation of COVID-19 patients presenting to an urgent care center (UCC). Infection control is imperative for hospitals treating patients with COVID-19, even more so in cancer centers, where the majority of the patient population is susceptible to adverse outcomes from the infection. Over the past several weeks, our department has worked to repurpose a portable CT scanner from our surgical colleagues that operates with fixed-parameters to perform non-contrast, helical, thin-slice chest imaging to address the known pulmonary complications of COVID-19. Despite the technical limitations of the portable CT unit that was repurposed for the UCC, diagnostic-quality images in an acute care setting were successfully obtained. Repurposing of a portable CT scanner for use in COVID-19 patients offers a feasible option to obtain diagnostic quality images while minimizing the risk of exposing other patients and hospital staff to an infected patient.


Iranian Emotional Experience and Expression During the COVID-19 Crisis


Poor survival with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): Pooled analysis of early reports


title: Air quality during the COVID-19: PM2.5 analysis in the 50 most polluted capital cities in the world

text: On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) the outbreak of a new strain of coronavirus that causes a serious disease in the city of Wuhan, China. This outbreak was classified as SARS-CoV2 and is the cause of the COVID-19 disease. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declares it a Pandemic and today it is considered the greatest challenge in global health that humanity has faced since World War II and it is estimated that between 40 and 60% of the population worldwide will catch the virus. This has caused enormous challenges in countries around the world in social, economic, environmental and obviously health issues. These challenges are mainly due to the effects of the established quarantines in almost all capitals and major cities around the world, from Asia, Europe to America. However, these lockdown which began worldwide from January 23, have had a significant impact on the environment and on the air quality of cities as recently reported by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and ESA (European Space Agency), with reductions according to them of up to 30% in some of the epicenters such as the case of Wuhan. Knowing that air pollution causes approximately 29% of lung cancer deaths, 43% of COPD deaths, and 25% of ischemic heart disease deaths, it is important to know the effects of quarantines in cities regarding air quality to take measures that favor populations and urban ecosystems when the emergency ends. Therefore, this paper describes the behavior of PM2.5 emissions particulate matter from the 50 most polluted capital cities in the world according to the WHO, measured before-after the start of the quarantine. Likewise, the impact at the local and global level of this emissions behavior, which averaged 12% of PM2.5 decrease in these cities.


Lack of efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in covid-19


title: Bat coronavirus phylogeography in the Western Indian Ocean

text: Bats provide key ecosystem services such as crop pest regulation, pollination, seed dispersal, and soil fertilization. Bats are also major hosts for biological agents responsible for zoonoses, such as coronaviruses (CoVs). The islands of the Western Indian Ocean are identified as a major biodiversity hotspot, with more than 50 bat species. In this study, we tested 1,013 bats belonging to 36 species from Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, Reunion Island and Seychelles, based on molecular screening and partial sequencing of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene. In total, 88 bats (8.7%) tested positive for coronaviruses, with higher prevalence in Mozambican bats (20.5% ± 4.9%) as compared to those sampled on islands (4.5% ± 1.5%). Phylogenetic analyses revealed a large diversity of α- and ß-CoVs and a strong signal of co-evolution between CoVs and their bat host species, with limited evidence for host-switching, except for bat species sharing day roost sites. These results highlight that strong variation between islands does exist and is associated with the composition of the bat species community on each island. Future studies should investigate whether CoVs detected in these bats have a potential for spillover in other hosts.


Mental health of scientists in the time of COVID-19


title: Psychological Practice and the COVID-19 Crisis: A Rapid Response Survey

text: Psychological practice has changed dramatically over the past 125 years. The two world wars both served to stimulate and change the scope of practice for psychologists. We surveyed over 3,000 doctoral psychologists about the impact of the COVID-19 health crisis on their clinical practices. Practice changed from primarily in-office to mostly telepsychology practice over the course of 2 weeks in March of 2020. The long-term effect on professional practice in psychology is not known.


Airborne precautions recommended in Wuhan, China for bedside fiberoptic bronchoscopy examination of patients with COVID-19


Beatmung von COVID-19-Patienten auf Intensivstationen./ Ventilation of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units


Telemedicine-Enabled Accelerated Discharge of Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients to Isolation in Repurposed Hotel Rooms


COVID-19 and the death of older people in Italy's rest homes. Is a judicial turmoil the answer?