title: Probable Pangolin Origin of SARS-CoV-2 Associated with the COVID-19 Outbreak

text: An outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) began in the city of Wuhan in China and has widely spread worldwide. Currently, it is vital to explore potential intermediate hosts of SARS-CoV-2 to control COVID-19 spread. Therefore, we reinvestigated published data from pangolin lung samples from which SARS-CoV-like CoVs were detected by Liu et al. [1]. We found genomic and evolutionary evidence of the occurrence of a SARS-CoV-2-like CoV (named Pangolin-CoV) in dead Malayan pangolins. Pangolin-CoV is 91.02% and 90.55% identical to SARS-CoV-2 and BatCoV RaTG13, respectively, at the whole-genome level. Aside from RaTG13, Pangolin-CoV is the most closely related CoV to SARS-CoV-2. The S1 protein of Pangolin-CoV is much more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than to RaTG13. Five key amino acid residues involved in the interaction with human ACE2 are completely consistent between Pangolin-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, but four amino acid mutations are present in RaTG13. Both Pangolin-CoV and RaTG13 lost the putative furin recognition sequence motif at S1/S2 cleavage site that can be observed in the SARS-CoV-2. Conclusively, this study suggests that pangolin species are a natural reservoir of SARS-CoV-2-like CoVs.


ECT in a time of COVID-19


Liver Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy: an Effective and Feasible Alternative to Surgery during the COVID-19 Pandemic


Reduction in cardiovascular emergency admissions in Monaco during the COVID-19 pandemic


title: Designing clinical trials for future space missions as a pathway to changing how clinical trials are conducted on Earth

text: OBJECTIVE: The project aims to build a framework for conducting clinical trials for long-term interplanetary missions to contribute to innovation in clinical trials on Earth, especially around patient involvement and ownership. METHODS: We conducted two workshops in which participants were immersed in the speculative scenario of an interplanetary mission in which health problems emerged that required medical trials to resolve. The workshops used virtual reality and live simulation to mimic a zero-gravity environment and visual perception shifts and were followed by group discussion. RESULTS: Some key aspects for the framework that emerged from the workshops included: (a) approaches to be inclusive in the management of the trial, (b) approaches to be inclusive in designing the research project (patient preference trials, n-of-1 trials, designing clinical trials to be part of a future prospective meta-analysis, etc), (c) balancing the research needs and the community needs (eg, allocation of the participants based on both research and community need), (d) ethics and partnerships (ethics and consent issues and how they relate to partnerships and relationships). CONCLUSION: In identifying some key areas that need to be incorporated in future planning of clinical trials for interplanetary missions, we also identified areas that are relevant to engaging patients in clinical trials on Earth. We will suggest using the same methodology to facilitate more in-depth discussions on specific aspects of clinical trials in aerospace medicine. The methodology can be more widely used in other areas to open new inclusive conversations around innovating research methodology.


Social Work Response Needed to the Challenge of COVID-19 for Aging People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilties


title: Acute Cerebral Stroke with Multiple Infarctions and COVID-19, France, 2020

text: We describe 2 cases in coronavirus disease patients in France involving presumed thrombotic stroke that occurred during ongoing anticoagulation treatment for atrial fibrillation stroke prophylaxis; 1 patient had positive antiphospholipid antibodies. These cases highlight the severe and unique consequences of coronavirus disease-associated stroke.


ACMT Position Statement: Medication Shortages During Coronavirus Disease Pandemic


title: The treatment and follow-up of "recurrence" with discharged COVID-19 patients: Data from Guizhou, China

text: We reported 20 cases of discharged COVID-19 patients whose RT-PCR test results showed "re-positive". After finding "re-positive ", these patients were admitted to hospital for the second time and were followed up until the end of May 2020. Methods: Record detailed treatment and follow-up process, and collect relevant data. The possible causes and potential clinical significance of this phenomenon are discussed. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


docid: eqrggjpv

title: Treatment of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Patients with Convalescent Plasma

text: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, has spread globally, and no proven treatments are available. Convalescent plasma therapy has been used with varying degrees of success to treat severe microbial infections for >100 years. Patients (n = 25) with severe and/or life-threatening COVID-19 disease were enrolled at the Houston Methodist hospitals from March 28, 2020, to April 14, 2020. Patients were transfused with convalescent plasma, obtained from donors with confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection who had recovered. The primary study outcome was safety, and the secondary outcome was clinical status at day 14 after transfusion. Clinical improvement was assessed on the basis of a modified World Health Organization six-point ordinal scale and laboratory parameters. Viral genome sequencing was performed on donor and recipient strains. At day 7 after transfusion with convalescent plasma, nine patients had at least a one-point improvement in clinical scale, and seven of those were discharged. By day 14 after transfusion, 19 (76%) patients had at least a one-point improvement in clinical status, and 11 were discharged. No adverse events as a result of plasma transfusion were observed. Whole genome sequencing data did not identify a strain genotype-disease severity correlation. The data indicate that administration of convalescent plasma is a safe treatment option for those with severe COVID-19 disease.


title: Obesity, the most common comorbidity in SARS-CoV-2: is leptin the link?

text: Overweight and obesity are major risk factors for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and lung disease. These diseases are the most commonly reported health conditions that predispose individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection to require hospitalization including intensive care unit admissions. The innate immune response is the host's first line of defense against a human coronavirus infection. However, most coronaviruses are armed with one strategy or another to overcome host antiviral defense, and the pathogenicity of the virus is related to its capacity to suppress host immunity. The multifaceted nature of obesity including its effects on immunity can fundamentally alter the pathogenesis of acute respiratory distress syndrome and pneumonia, which are the major causes of death due to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Elevated circulating leptin concentrations are a hallmark of obesity, which is associated with a leptin-resistant state. Leptin is secreted by adipocytes in proportion to body fat and regulates appetite and metabolism through signaling in the hypothalamus. However, leptin also signals through the Jak/STAT and Akt pathways, among others, to modulate T cell number and function. Thus, leptin connects metabolism with the immune response. Therefore, it seems appropriate that its dysregulation would have serious consequences during an infection. We propose that leptin may be the link between obesity and its high prevalence as a comorbidity of the SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this article, we present a synthesis of the mechanisms underpinning susceptibility to respiratory viral infections and the contribution of the immunomodulatory effects of obesity to the outcome.


Need for Transparency and Reliable Evidence in Emergency Use Authorizations for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Therapies


The basic reproduction number of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) estimation based on exponential growth in the early outbreak in China from 2019 to 2020: A reply to Dhungana


title: Usage of Chinese Herbs in Cancer Patients in Southern China: A Survey

text: OBJECTIVE: To study the use of Chinese medicine (CM) in cancer patients in southern China. METHODS: A total of 1,950 cancer patients finished questionnaires in four provinces in southern China. The survey included socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of participants, dosage forms, efficacy, and side effects. RESULTS: The study results showed that cancer patients with higher education (>12 years) were more likely to accept the treatment of Chinese herbs. There were 54.61% (1,065 cases) of patients chose Chinese herbs for the initial treatment and 14.46% (282 cases) chose Chinese herbs as monotherapy. Most patients (54.51%, 1,063 cases) continuously used CM for more than 6 months, and a few of them (212 cases) used CM for up to 3 years. All kinds of dosage forms of CM had been used, including CM decoction, CM patent prescription and CM injection. Concerning the efficacy in the view of patients, 40.31% (786 cases) believed that it would be effective to take Chinese herbs before they starting the anti-cancer treatment, and the percentage increased to 81.08% after 1-month CM treatment. The effect of Chinese herbs was mainly demonstrated by symptom relief and improvement of quality of life, and 8.31% (162 cases) of patients experienced control of tumor growth and decreased tumor markers. Furthermore, only 14.31% (279 cases) participants reported that they experienced side effects during CM treatment. CONCLUSION: This large scale investigation reflects the current situation of domestic CM usage objectively and comprehensively, which might provide new ways for cancer treatment.


title: Is it possible to suspend the spread of an epidemic infection? The dynamic Monte Carlo approach

text: We study a dynamics of the epidemiological infection spreading at different values of the risk factor $\beta$ (a control parameter) with the using of dynamic Monte Carlo approach (DMC). In our toy model, the infection transmits due to contacts of randomly moving individuals. We show that the behavior of recovereds critically depends on the $\beta$ value. For sub-critical values $\beta<\beta_{c}\sim 0.6$, the number of infected cases asymptotically converges to zero, such that for a moderate risk factor the infection may disappear with time. Our simulations shown that over time, the properties of such a system asymptotically become close to the critical transition in 2D percolation system. We also analyzed an extended system, which includes two additional parameters: the limits of taking on/off quarantine state. It is found that the early quarantine off does result in the irregular (with positive Lyapunov exponent) oscillatory dynamics of infection. If the lower limit of the quarantine off is small enough, the recovery dynamics acquirers a characteristic nonmonotonic shape with several damped peaks. The dynamics of infection spreading in case of the individuals with immunity is studied too.


Coping with the COVID-19 crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa: let us not leave older people behind!


title: United States should allow volunteers to be infected with coronavirus to test vaccines, lawmakers argue

text: Political support is building for regulators in the United States to embrace the controversial strategy of intentionally infecting volunteers with the virus that causes COVID-19 in order to test experimental vaccines Such human challenge trials could greatly accelerate the development of an effective vaccine, 35 members of the House of Representatives argue in a letter sent yesterday to the heads of the U S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)


Evaluating the dermatology communities' public health response to COVID-19


The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in pregnancy: What we need to know


Blood supply and transfusion support in southern Italy: findings during the first four weeks of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic


Evaluation of COVID-19 infection in patients with Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD): A report from Iran


Videolaryngoscopy for tracheal intubation in patients with COVID-19


title: Crushing the curve, the role of national and international institutions and policy makers in COVID-19 pandemic

text: Nobody can be fully prepared to a pandemic. Of course there are signs of it, the scientists can predict, alarming speeches can be made. But there are always alarmist people around, maybe that is why sometimes even the most serious warnings may be not considered by the authorities on time. The first patients may be lost without a proper diagnosis. When everybody realizes that there may be a big problem in the horizon, sometimes it is too late. That is why it is very important to monitor contagious diseases and follow the warnings and releases of national and international disease control centers and other related organizations. China celebrated Lunar New Year with more than 40 thousand families on the 18 of January 2020. Nobody seem to be expecting this emerging new viral pneumonia outbreak appeared in Wuhan, in the last days of 2019, will break the chains and turn out to be a pandemic! But maybe this time it was not too late. There were four important pandemics within the last century: Spanish Flu, Hong Kong Flu, Asian Flu and Swine Flu. Each left different story behind. Millions of people had infected, hundreds, thousands of people died. This time, the Modern World had different tools to limit the SARS CoV2 outbreak. The national and international institutions of our globe were all communicating and taking precautions in a very fast manner than ever. However, this time, unexpectedly, the SARS-CoV-2 contagion was also faster. Besides the international organizations like WHO, UNESCO and UNICEF, the roles of local authorities, health ministries, disease control centers, health protection agencies, research centers and universities are all very important in different operational levels to control and survive from the pandemic. This paper will review the immediate response of different national and international institutions and authorities to COVID-19 pandemic.


Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation programs for COVID-19 in China


title: Part I. SARS-CoV-2 triggered 'PANIC' attack in severe COVID-19

text: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has produced a world-wide collapse of social and economic infrastructure, as well as constrained our freedom of movement. This respiratory tract infection is nefarious in how it targets the most distal and highly vulnerable aspect of the human bronchopulmonary tree, specifically, the delicate yet irreplaceable alveoli that are responsible for the loading of oxygen upon red cell hemoglobin for use by all of the body's tissues. In most symptomatic individuals, the disease is a mild immune-mediated syndrome, with limited damage to the lung tissues. About 20% of those affected experience a disease course characterized by a cataclysmic set of immune activation responses that can culminate in the diffuse and irreversible obliteration of the distal alveoli, leading to a virtual collapse of the gas-exchange apparatus. Here, in Part I of a duology on the characterization and potential treatment for COVID-19, we define severe COVID-19 as a consequence of the ability of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to trigger what we now designate for the first time as a 'Prolific Activation of a Network-Immune-Inflammatory Crisis', or 'PANIC' Attack, in the alveolar tree. In Part II we describe an immunotherapeutic hypothesis worthy of the organization of a randomized clinical trial in order to ascertain whether a repurposed, generic, inexpensive, and widely available agent is capable of abolishing 'PANIC'; thereby preventing or mitigating severe COVID-19, with monumental ramifications for world health, and the global pandemic that continues to threaten it.


title: The changing patter of COVID-19 in China: A tempo-geographic analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic

text: BACKGROUND: Evaluating whether an infectious disease has reached a turning point is important for planning additional intervention efforts. This study aimed to analyze the changing patterns and the tempo-geographic features of the COVID-19 epidemic, to provide further evidence for real-time responses. METHODS: Daily data on COVID-2019 cases between 31st Dec. 2019 and 26th Feb. 2020 were collected and analyzed for Hubei and non-Hubei regions. Observed trends for new and cumulative cases were analyzed through joint-point regressions. Spatial analysis was applied to show the geographic distribution and changing pattern of the epidemic. RESULTS: By 26th Feb. 2020, 78,630 confirmed COVID-19 cases had been reported in China. In Hubei, an increasing trend (slope=221) was observed for new cases between 24th Jan. and February 7th Feb. 2020, after which a decline commenced (slope=-868). However, as the diagnosis criteria changed, a sudden increase (slope=5530) was observed on 12th Feb., which sharply decreased afterward (slope=-4898). In non-Hubei regions, the number of new cases increased from 20th Jan. to 3rd Feb. and started to decline afterward (slope=-53). The spatial analysis identified Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Changsha, Nanchang, Wenzhou, Shanghai, Xinyang, Jining, and Beijing as the hotspots outside of Hubei province in China. CONCLUSION AND RELEVANCE: The joint-point regression analysis indicated that the epidemic might have been under control in China, especially for regions outside of Hubei province. Further improvement in the response strategies based on these new patterns is needed.


An internet-based algorithm for diabetic foot infection during the COVID-19 pandemic


title: 2019 Novel Coronavirus: What Is Currently Known, Cardiovascular Implications and Management

text: From first cases reported on December 31, 2019, in Wuhan, Hubei-China, SARS-CoV2 has spread worldwide and finally the World Health Organization declared the pandemic status. We summarize what makes SARS-CoV2 different from previous highly pathogenic coronaviruses and why it is so contagious, with focus on its clinical presentation and diagnosis, which is mandatory to start the appropriate management and reduce the transmission. As far as infection pathophysiology is still not completely clarified, this review focuses also on the cardiovascular (CV) implication of COVID-19 and the capability of this virus to cause direct myocardial injury, myocarditis and other CV manifestations. Furthermore, we highlight the relationship between the virus, enzyme ACE2 and ACE inhibitors. Clinical management involves the intensive care approach with intubation and mechanical ventilation in the most serious cases and drug therapy with several apparently promising old and new molecules. Aim of this review is then to summarize what is actually known about the SARS-CoV2 and its cardiovascular implications.


title: Studies in humanized mice and convalescent humans yield a SARS-CoV-2 antibody cocktail

text: Neutralizing antibodies have become an important tool in treating infectious diseases. Recently, two separate approaches yielded successful antibody treatments for Ebola - one from genetically-humanized mice, and the other from a human survivor. Here, we describe parallel efforts using both humanized mice and convalescent patients to generate antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, yielding a large collection of fully-human antibodies that were characterized for binding, neutralization and three dimensional structure. Based on these criteria, we selected pairs of highly-potent individual antibodies that simultaneously bind the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein, providing ideal partners for a therapeutic antibody cocktail that aims to decrease the potential for virus escape mutants that might arise in response to selective pressure from a single antibody treatment.


title: Drug Development and Medicinal Chemistry Efforts toward SARS-Coronavirus and Covid-19 Therapeutics

text: The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection is spreading at an alarming rate and has created an unprecedented health emergency around the globe. There is no effective vaccine or approved drug treatment against COVID-19 and other pathogenic coronaviruses. The development of antiviral agents is an urgent priority. Biochemical events critical to the coronavirus replication cycle provided a number of attractive targets for drug development. These include, spike protein for binding to host cell-surface receptors, proteolytic enzymes that are essential for processing polyproteins into mature viruses, and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase for RNA replication. There has been a lot of ground work for drug discovery and development against these targets. Also, high-throughput screening efforts have led to the identification of diverse lead structures, including natural product-derived molecules. This review highlights past and present drug discovery and medicinal-chemistry approaches against SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and COVID-19 targets. The review hopes to stimulate further research and will be a useful guide to the development of effective therapies against COVID-19 and other pathogenic coronaviruses.


Rapid training of healthcare staff for protected cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the COVID-19 pandemic


COVID-19: How to Prepare for the Pandemic?


Frequent occurrence of CD19-negative relapse after CD19 CAR T and consolidation therapy in 14 TP53-mutated r/r B-ALL children


title: Residual Attention U-Net for Automated Multi-Class Segmentation of COVID-19 Chest CT Images

text: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been spreading rapidly around the world and caused significant impact on the public health and economy. However, there is still lack of studies on effectively quantifying the lung infection caused by COVID-19. As a basic but challenging task of the diagnostic framework, segmentation plays a crucial role in accurate quantification of COVID-19 infection measured by computed tomography (CT) images. To this end, we proposed a novel deep learning algorithm for automated segmentation of multiple COVID-19 infection regions. Specifically, we use the Aggregated Residual Transformations to learn a robust and expressive feature representation and apply the soft attention mechanism to improve the capability of the model to distinguish a variety of symptoms of the COVID-19. With a public CT image dataset, we validate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm in comparison with other competing methods. Experimental results demonstrate the outstanding performance of our algorithm for automated segmentation of COVID-19 Chest CT images. Our study provides a promising deep leaning-based segmentation tool to lay a foundation to quantitative diagnosis of COVID-19 lung infection in CT images.


title: Excess cases of influenza-like illnesses synchronous with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic, France, March 2020

text: Several French regions where coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been reported currently show a renewed increase in ILI cases in the general practice-based Sentinelles network. We computed the number of excess cases by region from 24 February to 8 March 2020 and found a correlation with the number of reported COVID-19 cases so far. The data suggest larger circulation of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the French population than apparent from confirmed cases.


title: Model selection criteria for regression models with splines and the automatic localization of knots

text: In this paper we propose a model selection approach to fit a regression model using splines with a variable number of knots. We introduce a penalized criterion to estimate the number and the position of the knots where to anchor the splines basis. The method is evaluated on simulated data and applied to covid-19 daily reported cases for short-term prediction.


docid: hdgqeabx

title: BCG-induced trained immunity: can it offer protection against COVID-19?


title: Epidemiologie und Kontrollmaßnahmen bei COVID-19./ [Epidemiology and control of COVID-19]

text: The Coronavirus Disease Pandemic 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-related Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), started in December 2019 in China. SARS-CoV-2 is easily transmitted by droplet infection. After an incubation period of 1-14 days, COVID-19 shows a mild course in 80â% of observed cases and a severe course in 20â%, with a lethality rate of 0.3-5.8â%. Elderly people and people with underlying diseases have a higher risk of severe courses with mandatory ventilation. So far there are neither effective drugs nor vaccinations available, so only public health interventions such as physical distancing and hygiene measures on the one hand and targeted testing followed by isolation and quarantine measures on the other hand are available. China has shown that maximum use of these measures can control the epidemic. The further course and also the consequences for the global economy cannot be clearly predicted at present.


COVID-19 pandemic in India


docid: ewpoohtm

title: Cancer surgery sustainability in the light of COVID-19 pandemic


docid: ziujiigl

title: Modelling the Extremes of Seasonal Viruses and Hospital Congestion: The Example of Flu in a Swiss Hospital

text: Viruses causing flu or milder coronavirus colds are often referred to as"seasonal viruses"as they tend to subside in warmer months. In other words, meteorological conditions tend to impact the activity of viruses, and this information can be exploited for the operational management of hospitals. In this study, we use three years of daily data from one of the biggest hospitals in Switzerland and focus on modelling the extremes of hospital visits from patients showing flu-like symptoms and the number of positive cases of flu. We propose employing a discrete Generalized Pareto distribution for the number of positive and negative cases, and a Generalized Pareto distribution for the odds of positive cases. Our modelling framework allows for the parameters of these distributions to be linked to covariate effects, and for outlying observations to be dealt with via a robust estimation approach. Because meteorological conditions may vary over time, we use meteorological and not calendar variations to explain hospital charge extremes, and our empirical findings highlight their significance. We propose a measure of hospital congestion and a related tool to estimate the resulting CaRe (Charge-at-Risk-estimation) under different meteorological conditions. The relevant numerical computations can be easily carried out using the freely available GJRM R package. The introduced approach could be applied to several types of seasonal disease data such as those derived from the new virus SARS-CoV-2 and its COVID-19 disease which is at the moment wreaking havoc worldwide. The empirical effectiveness of the proposed method is assessed through a simulation study.


How to survive from the threat of COVID-19, for rehabilitaion facilities with frequent heavy contact.


Letter to the Editor 'Scoping the Perplexing Effect of the COVID Pandemic in Nepal, and the Appraisal for Precautionary Measures from Its Lurking Aftermath'


Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic: An ophthalmologist's experience in an intensive care unit at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences


title: COVID-19 preventive measures showing an unintended decline in infectious diseases in Taiwan

text: Many communicable diseases may have contact, airborne, and/or droplets transmission. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, Taiwan government implemented the use of masks and sanitizer and other prevention measures, like social distancing for prevention. This public response may have likely contributed significantly to the decline in the outbreak of other infectious diseases.


Super-spreading events and contribution to transmission of MERS, SARS, and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19)


The Message of the Covid Pandemic


Non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases in patients with COVID-19: A retrospective study


In Response to: In Reference to Anosmia and Ageusia: Common Findings in COVID-19 Patients


title: Clinical Risk Prediction with Temporal Probabilistic Asymmetric Multi-Task Learning

text: Although recent multi-task learning methods have shown to be effective in improving the generalization of deep neural networks, they should be used with caution for safety-critical applications, such as clinical risk prediction. This is because even if they achieve improved task-average performance, they may still yield degraded performance on individual tasks, which may be critical (e.g., prediction of mortality risk). Existing asymmetric multi-task learning methods tackle this negative transfer problem by performing knowledge transfer from tasks with low loss to tasks with high loss. However, using loss as a measure of reliability is risky since it could be a result of overfitting. In the case of time-series prediction tasks, knowledge learned for one task (e.g., predicting the sepsis onset) at a specific timestep may be useful for learning another task (e.g., prediction of mortality) at a later timestep, but lack of loss at each timestep makes it difficult to measure the reliability at each timestep. To capture such dynamically changing asymmetric relationships between tasks in time-series data, we propose a novel temporal asymmetric multi-task learning model that performs knowledge transfer from certain tasks/timesteps to relevant uncertain tasks, based on feature-level uncertainty. We validate our model on multiple clinical risk prediction tasks against various deep learning models for time-series prediction, which our model significantly outperforms, without any sign of negative transfer. Further qualitative analysis of learned knowledge graphs by clinicians shows that they are helpful in analyzing the predictions of the model. Our final code is available at https://github.com/anhtuan5696/TPAMTL.


title: [Contagiousness and secondary attack rate of 2019 novel coronavirus based on cluster epidemics of COVID-19 in Guangzhou]

text: Objective: To analyze the contagiousness and secondary attack rate of 2019 novel coronavirus in cluster epidemics in Guangzhou and provide evidence for the prevention and control of COVID-19. Methods: All the individuals identified to be infected with 2019-nCoV in Guangzhou, including confirmed cases and asymptomatic cases, were included and classified as imported cases and local cases. The first case of each cluster epidemic was defined as index case, and the number of subsequent infections was calculated to evaluate the contagiousness and secondary attack rate of 2019 novel coronavirus in the shortest incubation period of 1-3 days. Results: As of 18 February, 2020, a total of 349 cases of 2019-nCoV infection, including 339 confirmed cases (97.13%) and 10 asymptomatic cases (2.87%) were reported in Guangzhou. There were 68 clusters involving 217 2019-nCoV infection cases (210 confirmed cases and 7 asymptomatic cases). The median number of subsequent infections caused by an index case in a cluster epidemic was 3, among which 2 were confirmed cases and 1 was asymptomatic cases, respectively. The average number of contagiousness was 2.18 in shorted incubation period of 1-3 days (The average number of infected cases were 2.18 cases by the index case in a cluster epidemic), the average infection number in family members was 1.86, and the infection ratio of family member transmission was 85.32% (1.86/2.18). The secondary attack rate in close contacts with shortest incubation period of 1-3 days was 17.12%-18.99%, the secondary attack rate in family members was 46.11%-49.56%. Conclusions: The cluster epidemic of COVID-19 in Guangzhou mainly occurred in families, the contagiousness was high. It is necessary to strengthen the prevention and control to reduce the community transmission of COVID-19.


Commentary: COVID-19 and diabetes


title: Lest We Forget: A Dataset of Coronavirus-Related News Headlines in Swiss Media

text: We release our COVID-19 news dataset, containing more than 10,000 links to news articles related to the Coronavirus pandemic published in the Swiss media since early January 2020. This collection can prove beneficial in mining and analysis of the reaction of the Swiss media and the COVID-19 pandemic and extracting insightful information for further research. We hope this dataset helps researchers and the public deliver results that will help analyse the pandemic and potentially lead to a better understanding of the events.


Covid-19: death rate is 0.66% and increases with age, study estimates


The scientific rationale for the use of simple masks or improvised facial coverings to trap exhaled aerosols and possibly reduce the breathborne spread of COVID-19


docid: xpmmalns

title: [Which sampling method for the upper respiratory tract specimen should be taken to diagnose patient with COVID-19?]


title: Addressing the rheumatology workforce shortage: A multifaceted approach

text: A significant challenge facing the field of rheumatology is the projected gap between the growing demand for rheumatologists and the available workforce. In order to improve access to care, augmenting the rheumatology workforce is required. Herein we discuss potential solutions to the anticipated workforce shortage, including 1) expanding the training of rheumatology physicians; 2) increasing nurse practitioner, physician assistant and pharmacist utilization in rheumatology practice; 3) growing the use of telemedicine; and 4) reducing burnout in order to retain practicing rheumatologists. Building on the existing literature in these areas, we propose a multifaceted approach to addressing the rheumatology workforce shortage.


title: Animal-based food systems are unsafe: SARS-CoV-2 fosters the debate on meat consumption

text: The current pandemic restarts a debate on permanently banning wildlife consumption in an effort to prevent further public health threats. In this commentary, we offer two ideas to enhance the discussion on foodborne zoonotic diseases in food systems. First, we focus on the probable consequences that the loss of access to wildlife could cause to the status of food and nutrition security of many people in developing countries that rely on bushmeat to subsist. Second, we argue that all animal-based food systems, especially the ones based on intensive husbandry, present food safety threats. To ban the access to bushmeat without a rational analysis of all human meat production and consumption in the global animal-based food system will not help us to prevent future outbreaks.


title: Explainable deep learning models in medical image analysis

text: Deep learning methods have been very effective for a variety of medical diagnostic tasks and has even beaten human experts on some of those. However, the black-box nature of the algorithms has restricted clinical use. Recent explainability studies aim to show the features that influence the decision of a model the most. The majority of literature reviews of this area have focused on taxonomy, ethics, and the need for explanations. A review of the current applications of explainable deep learning for different medical imaging tasks is presented here. The various approaches, challenges for clinical deployment, and the areas requiring further research are discussed here from a practical standpoint of a deep learning researcher designing a system for the clinical end-users.


Managing Change in the Aftermath of a Pandemic


title: Using Photo Modeling Based 3DGRSL to Promote the Sustainability of Geo-Education, a case study from China

text: In earth science education, observation of field geological phenomena is very important. Due to China's huge student population, it is difficult to guarantee education fairness and teaching quality in field teaching. Specimens are indispensable geo-education resources. However, the specimen cabinet or picture specimen library has many limitations and it is difficult to meet the internet-spirit or geo-teaching needs. Based on photo modeling, this research builds a 3D Geo-Resource Sharing Library (3DGRSL) for Geo-Education. It uses the Cesium engine and data-oriented distributed architecture to provide the educational resources to many universities. With Browser/Server (B/S) architecture, the system can realize multi-terminal and multi-scenario access of mobile phones, tablets, VR, PC, indoor, outdoor, field, providing a flexible and convenient way for preserving and sharing scientific information about geo-resources. This makes sense to students who cannot accept field teaching in under-funded colleges, and the ones with mobility problems. Tests and scoring results show that 3DGRSL is a suitable solution for displaying and sharing geological specimens. Which is of great significance for the sustainable use and protection of geoscience teaching resources, the maintenance of the right to fair education, and the construction of virtual simulation solutions in the future.


title: Mobility patterns of the Portuguese population during the COVID-19 pandemic

text: SARS-CoV-2 emerged in late 2019. Since then, it has spread to several countries, becoming classified as a pandemic. So far, there is no definitive treatment or vaccine, so the best solution is to prevent transmission between individuals through social distancing. However, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of these distancing measures. Therefore, this study uses data from Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports to try to understand the mobility patterns of the Portuguese population during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, the Rt value was modeled for Portugal. Also, the changepoint was calculated for the population mobility patterns. Thus, the change in the mobility pattern was used to understand the impact of social distancing measures on the dissemination of COVID-19. As a result, it can be stated that the initial Rt value in Portugal was very close to 3, falling to values close to 1 after 25 days. Social isolation measures were adopted quickly. Furthermore, it was observed that public transport was avoided during the pandemic. Finally, until the emergence of a vaccine or an effective treatment, this will be the new normal and it must be understood that new patterns of mobility, social interaction, and hygiene must be adapted to this new reality.


title: The impact of the great economic crisis on mental health care in Italy

text: The great economic crisis in 2008 has affected the welfare of the population in countries such as Italy. Although there is abundant literature on the impact of the crisis on physical health, very few studies have focused on the causal implications for mental health and health care. This paper, therefore, investigates the impact of the recent economic crisis on hospital admissions for severe mental disorder at small geographic levels in Italy and assesses whether there are heterogeneous effects across areas with distinct levels of income. We exploit 9-year (2007-2015) panel data on hospital discharges, which is merged with employment and income composition at the geographic units that share similar labour market structures. Linear and dynamic panel analysis are used to identify the causal effect of rising unemployment rate on severe mental illness admissions per 100,000 residents to account for time-invariant heterogeneity. We further create discrete income levels to identify the potential socioeconomic gradients behind this effect across areas with different economic characteristics. The results show a significant impact of higher unemployment rates on admissions for severe mental disorders after controlling for relevant economic factors, and the effects are concentrated on the most economically disadvantaged areas. The results contribute to the literature of spatio-temporal variation in the broader determinants of mental health and health care utilisation and shed light on the populations that are most susceptible to the effects of the economic crisis.


title: Reply to Letter to the Editor: COVID-19-Related Liver Injury and Clinical Outcomes: Does It Really Exist?

text: We appreciate Philips and colleagues' interest in our report on the associations between liver injury markers and coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) mortality.(1) They raised the question regarding the application of liver injury markers. However, several of their interpretations of our results are misleading or incorrect. We understand that use of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) in isolation cannot comprehensively characterize liver injury.


title: The basic reproduction number of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan is about to die out, how about the rest of the World?

text: The virologically confirmed cases of a new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the world are rapidly increasing, leading epidemiologists and mathematicians to construct transmission models that aim to predict the future course of the current pandemic. The transmissibility of a virus is measured by the basic reproduction number ( R0 ), which measures the average number of new cases generated per typical infectious case. This review highlights the articles reporting rigorous estimates and determinants of COVID-19 R0 for the most affected areas. Moreover, the mean of all estimated R0 with median and interquartile range is calculated. According to these articles, the basic reproduction number of the virus epicentre Wuhan has now declined below the important threshold value of 1.0 since the disease emerged. Ongoing modelling will inform the transmission rates seen in the new epicentres outside of China, including Italy, Iran and South Korea.


title: Probing the sensitivity to leptonic $\delta_{CP}$ in presence of invisible decay of $\nu_3$ using atmospheric neutrinos

text: One of the main neutrino oscillation parameters whose value has not been determined very precisely is the leptonic $\delta_{CP}$ phase. Since neutrinos have a tiny but finite mass they can undergo decay both visibly and invisibly. The effect of invisible decay of the third mass eigen state $\nu_3$ on the sensitivity to $\delta_{CP}$ is analysed here using atmospheric neutrino and anti-neutrino events. Effects of detector resolutions and systematic uncertainties are studied to identify the optimum resolutions and efficiencies required by a detector to obtain a significant sensitivity even in presence of decay.


Covid-19: Mental health consequences of pandemic need urgent research, paper advises


title: 'All In': a pragmatic framework for COVID-19 testing and action on a global scale

text: Current demand for SARS-CoV-2 testing is straining material resource and labor capacity around the globe. As a result, the public health and clinical community are hindered in their ability to monitor and contain the spread of COVID-19. Despite broad consensus that more testing is needed, pragmatic guidance toward realizing this objective has been limited. This paper addresses this limitation by proposing a novel and geographically agnostic framework (the 4Ps framework) to guide multidisciplinary, scalable, resource-efficient, and achievable efforts toward enhanced testing capacity. The 4Ps (Prioritize, Propagate, Partition, and Provide) are described in terms of specific opportunities to enhance the volume, diversity, characterization, and implementation of SARS-CoV-2 testing to benefit public health. Coordinated deployment of the strategic and tactical recommendations described in this framework has the potential to rapidly expand available testing capacity, improve public health decision-making in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and/or to be applied in future emergent disease outbreaks.


COVID-19 vaccine development pipeline gears up


title: Patients with cancer in the COVID-19 era: the clinical trial issue

text: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) hospital reorganization may result in reduced ability for the hospital to fully use its armamentarium for battling cancer. Thus different therapeutic modalities have been recommended. During the pandemic, despite regulatory agencies' recommendations, several considerations and doubts remain for oncologic clinical trials. Considering patients who had been enrolled before the pandemic, and who plan to take the study medication, the situation becomes complicated. These patients should undergo monitoring visits, blood sampling, questionnaire, physical examination, and drug and radiation administration. To avoid deviations from the protocol and trial discontinuation, follow-up should be performed regularly, in concordance with safety guidelines. Here we report several considerations.


Impact of COVID-19 on endoscopy trainees: an international survey


title: National Response to COVID-19 in the Republic of Korea and Lessons Learned for Other Countries

text: In the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) had the second highest number of cases globally yet was able to dramatically lower the incidence of new cases and sustain a low mortality rate, making it a promising example of strong national response. We describe the main strategies undertaken and selected facilitators and challenges in order to identify transferable lessons for other countries working to control the spread and impact of COVID-19. Identified strategies included early recognition of the threat and rapid activation of national response protocols led by national leadership; rapid establishment of diagnostic capacity; scale-up of measures for preventing community transmission; and redesigning the triage and treatment systems, mobilizing the necessary resources for clinical care. Facilitators included existing hospital capacity, the epidemiology of the COVID-19 outbreak, and strong national leadership despite political changes and population sensitization due to the 2015 Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV) epidemic. Challenges included sustaining adequate human resources and supplies in high-caseload areas. Key recommendations include (1) recognize the problem, (2) establish diagnostic capacity, (3) implement aggressive measures to prevent community transmission, (4) redesign and reallocate clinical resources for the new environment, and (5) work to limit economic impact through and while prioritizing controlling the spread and impact of COVID-19. South Korea's strategies to prevent, detect, and respond to the pandemic represent applicable knowledge that can be adopted by other countries and the global community facing the enormous COVID-19 challenges ahead.


Interleukin-6 levels in children developing SARS-CoV-2 infection


title: Coronavirus disease-2019: A tocsin to our aging, unfit, corpulent, and immunodeficient society

text: Acute and chronic respiratory illnesses cause widespread morbidity and mortality, and this class of illness now includes the novel coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome that is causing coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). The world is experiencing a major demographic shift toward an older, obese, and physically inactive populace. Risk factor assessments based on pandemic data indicate that those at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19 include older males, and people of all ages with obesity and related comorbidities such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Aging in and of itself leads to negative changes in innate and adaptive immunity, a process termed immunosenescence. Obesity causes systemic inflammation and adversely impacts immune function and host defense in a way that patterns immunosenescence. Two primary prevention strategies to reduce the risk for COVID-19 at both the community and individual levels include mitigation activities and the adoption of lifestyle practices consistent with good immune health. Animal and human studies support the idea that, in contrast to high exercise workloads, regular moderate-intensity physical activity improves immunosurveillance against pathogens and reduces morbidity and mortality from viral infection and respiratory illnesses including the common cold, pneumonia, and influenza. The odds are high that infectious disease pandemics spawned by novel pathogens will continue to inflict morbidity and mortality as the world's population becomes older and more obese. COVID-19 is indeed a wake-up call, a tocsin, to the world that primary prevention countermeasures focused on health behaviors and hygiene demand our full attention and support.


title: Herd Immunity: Understanding COVID-19

text: The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its associated disease, COVID-19, has demonstrated the devastating impact of a novel, infectious pathogen on a susceptible population. Here, we explain the basic concepts of herd immunity and discuss its implications in the context of COVID-19.


title: An outbreak of gastroenteritis by emerging norovirus GII.2[P16] in a kindergarten in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo

text: Outbreaks of diarrhea in kindergartens are underreported and frequently go unnoticed in developing countries. To better understand the etiology this study was performed during an outbreak of diarrhea in a kindergarten in Sabah, Malaysia. Outbreak investigation was performed according to the standard procedures. In this outbreak a total of 34 (36.5%) children and 4 (30.8%) teachers suffered from gastroenteritis. Stool samples from seven children and 13 teachers were tested for rotavirus and norovirus. During the investigation stool samples were collected and sent in cold chain to the laboratory. The samples were subjected to rotavirus enzyme linked immunosorbent assay, and reverse transcription PCR for norovirus. All samples were negative for rotavirus but positive for norovirus. To determine the genogroup and genotype of norovirus, nucleotide sequencing of the amplicons was performed. All norovirus from the outbreak was of genotype GII.2[16]. To determine the relatedness of the strains phylogenetic analysis was done using neighbor-joining method. Phylogenetically these strains were highly related to GII.2[P16] noroviruses from China and Japan. This study provided evidence that a diarrheal outbreak in a kindergarten was caused by GII.2[P16] norovirus which is an emerging strain in East Asia and Europe.


Expanding the definition of covid-19 deaths will show the true effect of the pandemic


title: The nexus between COVID-19, temperature and exchange rate in Wuhan city: New findings from partial and multiple wavelet coherence

text: This study attempts to document the nexus between weather, COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan and the Chinese economy. We used daily average temperature (hourly data), daily new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan, and RMB (Chinese currency) exchange rate to represent the weather, COVID-19 outbreak and the Chinese economy, respectively. The methodology of Wavelet Transform Coherence (WTC), Partial Wavelet Coherence (PWC) and Multiple Wavelet Coherence (MWC) is employed to analyze the daily data collected from 21st January 2020 to 31st March 2020. The results have revealed a significant coherence between the series at different time-frequency combinations. The overall results suggest the insignificance of an increase in temperature to contain or slow down the new COVID-19 infections. The RMB exchange rate and the COVID-19 showed an out phase coherence at specific time-frequency spots suggesting a negative but limited impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan on the Chinese export economy. Our results are contrary to many earlier studies which suggest a significant role of temperature in slowing down the COVID-19 spread. These results can have important policy implications for the containment of COVID-19 spread and macro-economic management with respect to changes in the weather.


Note from the editors: World Health Organization declares novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) sixth public health emergency of international concern


title: Recomendaciones de salud laboral para socorristas ante emergencias acuáticas en la era Covid-19: prevención, rescate y reanimación./ [Occupational health recommendations for lifeguards in aquatic emergencies in the Covid-19 era: prevention, rescue and resuscitation.]

text: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2), which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), is highly contagious. Lifeguards are the first line of response in aquatic emergencies and they will suffer a strong exposure to risk this first summer of the Covid-19 era, so their occupational health must be rethought in their professional practice during the new normal. The main public health measure to prevent drowning is prevention, but when this fails and assistance or rescue is required, in most interventions, distancing will not be possible. The limitation of personal protective equipment (PPE) for rescue is a reality that must be known and that can affect the health of the lifeguard. A review of the current literature aimed at avoiding or minimizing the risk of contagion in the interventions carried out by rescuers in the Covid-19 era was performed. This article provides structured information on the prevention of contagion in lifeguards, the potential risks, the available PPE, and the recommendations for its proper use during rescue or prehospital care in aquatic settings.


title: Changes in electricity demand pattern in Europe due to COVID-19 shutdowns

text: The article covers electricity demand shift effects due to COVID-19 shutdowns in various European countries. We utilize high-dimensional regression techniques to exploit the structural breaks in demand profiles due to the shutdowns. We discuss the findings with respect to coronavirus pandemic progress and regulatory measures of the considered countries.


title: COVID-19 detection using Residual Attention Network an Artificial Intelligence approach

text: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 virus (SARS-CoV-2). The virus transmits rapidly, it has a basic reproductive number ($R_0$) of $2.2-2.7$. In March, 2020 the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. Effective testing for COVID-19 is crucial to controlling the outbreak since infected patients can be quarantined. But the demand for testing outstrips the availability of test kits that use Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). In this paper, we present a technique to detect COVID-19 using Artificial Intelligence. Our technique takes only a few seconds to detect the presence of the virus in a patient. We collected a dataset of chest X-ray images and trained several popular deep convolution neural network-based models (VGG, MobileNet, Xception, DenseNet, InceptionResNet) to classify chest X-rays. Unsatisfied with these models we then designed and built a Residual Attention Network that was able to detect COVID-19 with a testing accuracy of 98\% and a validation accuracy of 100\%. Feature maps of our model show which areas within a chest X-ray are important for classification. Our work can help to increase the adaptation of AI-assisted applications in clinical practice.


A framework for nosocomial transmission of emerging coronaviruses


Sustaining essential healthcare in Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic


SARS-CoV-2 on the neural battleground


Life in a post-pandemic world: What to expect of anxiety-related conditions and their treatment


Responding to COVID-19 pandemic: Why a strong health system is required


title: Insight into COVID-2019 for pediatricians

text: Since December 2019, patients with unexplained pneumonia have been found in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. The pathogen in these cases is a new type of coronavirus. The World Health Organization confirmed this diagnosis and named the pathogen SARSCoV-2. The disease caused by SARSCoV-2 is called Corona Virus Disease (COVID-2019). The virus is highly infectious and pathogenic, causing human-to-human transmission. At present, SARSCoV-2 is still rampant in the world. Zhengzhou City in Henan Province serves as an example, 102 people have been confirmed to be infected with SARSCoV-2 (at 24:00 on February 5th, 2020), including three children, the youngest is 4 years old. From the perspective of clinical pediatricians as the first line fighting the epidemic, this paper will discuss the clinical characteristics, prevention and control measures, outcomes, diagnosis, and treatment of pediatric cases.


title: The Potential for Remotely Mentored Patient-Performed Home Self-Monitoring for New Onset Alveolar-Interstitial Lung Disease

text: Purpose: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and is an acute respiratory illness. Although most infected persons are asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms, some patients progress to devastating disease; such progression is difficult to predict or identify in a timely manner. COVID-19 patients who do not require hospitalization can self-isolate at home. Calls from one disease epicenter identify the need for homebased isolation with telemedicine surveillance to monitor for impending deterioration. Methodology: Although the dominant approach for these asymptomatic/paucisymptomatic patients is to monitor oxygen saturation, we suggest additionally considering the potential merits and utility of home-based imaging. Chest computed tomography is clearly impractical, but ultrasound has shown comparable sensitivity for lung involvement, with major advantages of short and simple procedures, low cost, and excellent repeatability. Thoracic ultrasound may thus allow remotely identifying the development of pneumonitis at an early stage of illness and potentially averting the risk of insidious deterioration to severe pneumonia and critical illness while in home isolation. Conclusions: Lung sonography can be easily performed by motivated nonmedical caregivers when directed and supervised in real time by experts. Remote mentors could thus efficiently monitor, counsel, and triage multiple home-based patients from their "control center." Authors believe that this approach deserves further attention and study to reduce delays and failures in timely hospitalization of home-isolated patients.


title: Assessing the anxiety level of Iranian general population during COVID-19 outbreak

text: This study is aimed to assess the anxiety level of Iranian general population during COVID-19 outbreak. The online questionnaire surveyed 10,754 individuals from the general population of 31 provinces of Iran who completed the questionnaire on social networks from March 1 to March 9, 2020. The inferential statistics suggests that the level of anxiety was higher among women (95 % CI [0.1, 81.36], pâ¯<â¯0.001), people who more followed corona-related news (pâ¯<â¯0.001) and the age group of 21-40 years (pâ¯<â¯0.001). Ultimately, the level of anxiety was significantly higher among people who had at least one family member, relative, or friend who contracted COVID-19 disease (95 % CI [1.2, 35.03], pâ¯<â¯0.001). The health care system should adopt a package of psychosocial interventions to reduce the anxiety of high risk groups.


SARS-CoV-2 RNA Detection in Gastrointestinal Sample Displays Poor Performance


Endoscopy during the COVID-19 pandemic: simple construction of a single-use, disposable face shield using inexpensive and readily available materials


title: SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) treatment: a patent review

text: INTRODUCTION: Coronavirus has been responsible for several virus outbreaks since 2003, caused by SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, and currently SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), the causative agent of coronavirus disease in 2019. COVID-19 has become a global public health emergency because of its high virulence and mortality capacity. This patent review aims to provide an overview of the patents that present possible treatments for SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV. AREAS COVERED: To treat SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2, researchers have filed patents for a number of therapeutic agents. Most of the treatments found were protease inhibitors aimed at proteases such as PLpro, 3 CLpro, RNA helicase, and Spike protein, or used monoclonal antibodies and interferons. In addition, the use of Chinese folk medicine and its multitude of medicinal plants with strong antiviral properties was reinforced. Thus, these therapies used in previous epidemics can serve as an aid in the new pandemic by SARS-CoV-2 and be a starting point for new treatments. EXPERT OPINION: The various antiviral alternatives presented in this review offer therapeutic options to fight coronavirus infections. If shown to be effective, these drugs may be extremely important in the current pandemic.


title: Two cases of coronavirus 2019-related cardiomyopathy in pregnancy

text: At our institution, 2 of the initial 7 pregnant patients with confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 severe infection (28.6%; 95% CI, 8.2%-64.1%) developed cardiac dysfunction with moderately reduced left ventricular ejection fractions of 40%-45% and hypokinesis. Viral myocarditis and cardiomyopathy have also been reported in nonpregnant coronavirus disease 2019 patients. A case series of nonpregnant patients with coronavirus disease 2019 found that 33% of those in intensive care developed cardiomyopathy. More data are needed to ascertain the incidence of cardiomyopathy from coronavirus disease 2019 in pregnancy, in all pregnant women with coronavirus disease 2019, and those with severe disease (eg, pneumonia). We suggest an echocardiogram in pregnant women with coronavirus disease 2019 pneumonia, in particular those necessitating oxygen, or those who are critically ill, and we recommend the use of handheld, point-of-care devices where possible to minimize contamination of staff and traditional large echocardiogram machines.


Puzzle of highly pathogenic human coronaviruses (2019-nCoV)


Mexican Human Leukocyte Antigen Alleles Might Predict Clinical Outcome in Sars-cov-2 Infected Patients


Telehealth Policies Impacting Federally Qualified Health Centers in Face of COVID-19


title: Health plan responses to covid-19

text: The health insurance industry is responding to COVID-19 by paying for testing and treatment, and working with providers to assure that coverage for proper care is available Many people are losing employment and potentially health insurance coverage, shifting the responsibility for payment among private sector and government payers The unbudgeted costs of COVID-19 care will be substantial At the same time, providers are postponing routine care and treatments that are not time-sensitive, reducing or deferring similarly substantial sums The balance of payments is uncertain, though likely to favor health plans in the short run


title: Positive Correlation Between General Public Knowledge and Attitudes Regarding COVID-19 Outbreak 1 Month After First Cases Reported in Indonesia

text: The increasing number cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infections in the general population in Indonesia raises questions concerning the public's knowledge and attitudes regarding this pandemic. To determine the correlation between the general public's knowledge and attitudes regarding the COVID-19 outbreak 1 month after the first cases were reported in Indonesia. This cross-sectional study was conducted between early March and the end of April 2020 in the general population of Indonesia, beginning with the North Sumatra region, where the spread of COVID-19 in Indonesia began. Questionnaires were randomly distributed online in the red zone in Indonesia. Data were collected by collecting people's responses to the questionnaire, which were distributed via WhatsApp (WA) application and were competed independently by the participants. A descriptive analysis was conducted to describe the demographic characteristics, knowledge, and attitudes of the general population. A total of 201 people had good knowledge (98%) and a positive attitude (96%) regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The respondents had a negative attitude in relation to two aspects of the COVID-19 outbreak: having to always maintain a distance of 1.5 m when in crowds, and not being able to regularly exercise or eat nutritious food (78.6% and 79.1%, respectively). Most people in Indonesia have good knowledge and a positive attitude regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. However, negative attitudes were still found in this study, and as a result, transmission prevention measures cannot reach their maximum effectiveness by simply publicizing the increase in day-to-day cases to the general public.


Optical theranostics and treatment dosimetry for COVID-19 lung complications: towards increasing the survival rate of vulnerable populations


Policy Solutions for Reversing the Color-blind Public Health Response to COVID-19 in the US


title: Telemedicine in Orthopaedic Surgery: Challenges and Opportunities

text: Improvements in technology and a push toward value-based health care have poised the telemedicine industry for growth; however, despite the benefits of virtual care, widespread implementation had not occurred until the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Powerful barriers have hindered the widespread adoption of telemedicine, including lack of awareness, implementation costs, inefficiencies introduced, difficulty performing physical examinations, overall lack of perceived benefit of virtual care, negative financial implications, concern for medicolegal liability, and regulatory restrictions. Some of these challenges have been addressed with temporary state and federal mandates in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, continued investment in systems and technology as well as refinement of regulations around telemedicine are needed to sustain widespread adoption by patients and providers.


New clinical needs and strategies for care in children with neurodisability during COVID-19


Ensuring care for clozapine-treated schizophrenia patients during the COVID-19 pandemic


title: Against the odds: unlikely COVID-19 recovery

text: BACKGROUND: We present a 67-year-old male, with palliative hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, who contracted COVID-19 infection while in hospital. Cancer diagnosis, among other clinical features, increases the risk of poor outcome of COVID-19 infection. A recently validated risk calculator (COVID-GRAM) can help to guide prognosis. EVENTS: COVID-19 infection caused significant clinical deterioration in this patient. A Treatment Escalation Plan of ward-based care was put in place and the palliative care team involved. The goal of care was comfort. RESULTS: The patient improved clinically and retested negative for COVID-19. He was discharged to a nursing home for ongoing supportive care of his malignancy. DISCUSSION: The validated COVID-GRAM calculator predicted a greater than 99% risk that this patient would require intensive therapy unit admission or die. This patient overcame significant physiological challenges to survive COVID-19, highlighting the challenges of prognostication and suggesting that palliation of COVID-19 is not detrimental to survival.


COVID-19: science must not be the boy who cried wolf


title: COVID-19 outbreak in Iraqi Kurdistan: The first report characterizing epidemiological, clinical, laboratory, and radiological findings of the disease

text: INTRODUCTION: On March 11, 2020, the novel coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. The disease was named COVID-19 standing for coronavirus disease 2019. The objectives were to determine the epidemiological, clinical, laboratory, and radiological characteristics of COVID-19 patients. METHODS: In this prospective descriptive study, 15 confirmed hospitalized cases of COVID-19 between 18th March and April 7, 2020 were followed-up till discharge. RESULTS: There were 15 reported patients infected by 3 imported index cases from Europe. The mean age of the patients was 28.06 (SD: 16.42 years). The patients' age stratification was as follows: 0-5 (2, 13.3%); 6-18 (2, 13.3); 19-50 (10, 66.7%), and 51-64 years (1, 6.7%). The patients were male (9, 60.0%) and female (6, 40.0%). Most of the patients had mild disease severity (13, 86.7%), followed by mild-moderate (1, 6.7%) and moderate-severe (1, 6.7%). The study revealed that 6 patients were asymptomatic, and 9 patients were symptomatic. The most common symptoms were: fever (n = 8; 53.3%), cough (n = 7; 46.7%), shortness of breath (n = 3; 20.0%), fatigue (n = 3; 20.0%), and taste and smell disorders (n = 4; 26.7%). All patients were recovered and discharged over a median of 8 between 8 and 21 days. The mean and Std. deviation values of the hematological were: WBC: 6.57 (1.86); neutrophil count: 3.75 (1.26); lymphocyte count: 1.87 (0.41); Hb: 13.89 (1.26); platelet count: 207.67 (52.21). CONCLUSION: All COVID-19 cases were linked to foreign visits with few local transmissions to close contacts without community transmission. The majority of cases were mild illnesses with full recovery.


title: Detectable SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in feces of three children during recovery period of COVID-19 pneumonia

text: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a newly emerging infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). After its first occurrence in Wuhan of China from December 2019, COVID-19 rapidly spread around the world. According to the World Health Organization statement on 13 March 2020, there had been over 132 500 confirmed cases globally. Nevertheless, the case reports of children are rare, which results in the lack of evidence for preventing and controlling of children's infection. Here, we report three cases of SARS-CoV-2 infected children diagnosed from 3 February to 17 February 2020 in Tianjin, China. All of these three cases experienced mild illness and recovered soon after the treatment, with the nucleic acid of throat swab turning negative within 14, 11, and 7 days after diagnosis, respectively. However, after been discharged, all three cases were tested SARS-CoV-2 positive in the stool samples within 10 days, in spite of their remained negative nucleic acid in throat swab specimens. Therefore, it is necessary to be aware of the possibility of fecal-oral transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection, especially for children cases.


title: A computational insight of the improved nicotine binding with ACE2-SARS-CoV-2 complex with its clinical impact

text: Smokers being witnessed with the mild adverse clinical symptoms of SARS-CoV-2, the in-silico study is intended to explore the effect of nicotine binding to the soluble angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2) receptor with or without SARS-CoV-2 binding. Nicotine established a stable interaction with the conserved amino acid residues: Asp382, Gly405, His378 and Tyr385 through His401 of the soluble ACE2 that seals its interaction with the INS1. Also, nicotine binding has significantly reduced the affinity score of ACE2 with INS1 to -12.6 kcal/mol (versus -15.7 kcal/mol without nicotine) and the interface area to 1933.6 square Angstrom (versus 2057.3 square Angstrom without nicotine). Nicotine exhibited a higher binding affinity score with ACE2-SARS-CoV-2 complex with -6.33 kcal/mol (Vs -5.24 kcal/mol without SARS-CoV-2) and a lowered inhibitory contant value of 22.95 micromolar (Vs 151.69 micromolar without SARS-CoV). Eventhough ACE2 is not a potential receptor for nicotine binding in the healthy people, in COVID19 patients, it may exhibit better binding affinity with the ACE2 receptor. In overall, nicotines strong preference for ACE2-SARS-CoV-2 complex might drastically reduce the SARS-CoV-2 virulence by intervening the ACE2 conserved residues interaction with the spike (S1) protein of SARS-CoV-2.


Clinician Education and Adoption of Preventive Measures for COVID-19: A Survey of a Convenience Sample of General Practitioners in Lombardy, Italy


title: The Impact of Sociocultural Influences on the COVID-19 Measures-Reflections From Singapore

text: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic presents unique challenges to Asian countries like Singapore with a predominantly Confucian culture. Palliative care providers play an important role in supporting their patients and family members in these difficult times.


COVID-19: Emerging compassion, courage and resilience in the face of misinformation and adversity


COVID-19 and student nurses: A view from England


title: Attitudes of Anesthesiology Specialists and Residents toward Patients Infected with the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19): A National Survey Study

text: Background: The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. This study aims to evaluate the knowledge of anesthesiology specialists and residents in Turkey about COVID-19 and their attitudes toward the strategies and application methods to be used for a suspected/confirmed COVID-19 case that needs to be operated on or followed up in an intensive care unit, as well as to raise awareness about this issue. Methods: This descriptive study comprised anesthesiology specialists and residents working in various health institutions in Turkey. The data used in this study were obtained online between March 13, 2020 and March 25, 2020 through the website SurveyMonkey (SurveyMonkey, San Mateo, CA) by using a survey form. We contacted members of the Turkish Anaesthesiology and Reanimation Society through the social media platforms Twitter, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp, as well as through their e-mail addresses and invited them to participate in the study. Those who agreed to participate responded to the aforementioned survey. We used SPSS 22.0 (IBM, Armonk, NY) to analyze the survey data statistically. Results: A total of 346 anesthesiology specialists and residents participated in the study. Although the majority of the participants exhibited the correct attitudes toward airway management, research assistants with little professional experience were observed to be undecided or had the tendency to make incorrect decisions. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic is spreading rapidly worldwide. The incidence of COVID-19 cases is increasing daily, and this disease can cause patient death. Anesthesiology specialists and residents who perform emergency operations on these patients in settings other than intensive care units should follow simple and easy-to-understand algorithms to ensure safety. The provision of theoretical and practical training to healthcare providers before they meet patients will help ensure patient-healthcare provider safety and prevent panic, which can cause distress among healthcare providers.


title: Picking low hanging fruit - A scoping review of work environment related interventions in the home care sector

text: Home care for elderly people is an important part of the social welfare system. The sector employs many people, especially women, and work environment issues are common. This review explores the scientific literature on organizational interventions that target the home care work environment. Altogether, 16 studies of varying quality met the inclusion criteria. The interventions identified involved organizational change, education and training, digitalization and scheduling. Many interventions were concerned with changing specific behaviors or with introducing new technology rather than tackling complex issues such as sick leave, stress or gender inequality. Employee participation increased the likelihood of success.


title: The cost of Bitcoin mining has never really increased

text: The Bitcoin network is burning a large amount of energy for mining. In this paper we estimate the lower bound for the global energy cost for a period of ten years from 2010, taking into account changing oil costs, improvements in hashing technologies and hashing activity. Despite a ten-billion-fold increase in hashing activity and a ten-million-fold increase in total energy consumption, we find the cost relative to the volume of transactions has not increased nor decreased since 2010. This is consistent with the perspective that, in order to keep a the Blockchain system secure from double spending attacks, the proof or work must cost a sizable fraction of the value that can be transferred through the network. We estimate that in the Bitcoin network this fraction is of the order of 1%.


title: The comparison of trends in Spain and the Nederland: a Dynamical compartment model of the transmission of Coronavirus

text: The recent spreading of coronavirus made many countries impose restrictions in order to control its dangerous effect on the citizens. We developed a theoretical dynamical model based on compartmental SIR system with additional adjustment taken from Flow network and Markov chain frameworks to illustrate developments and trends based on publicly available data. Based on this Model, code in R was written and fed by stamped publicly available data from authorized governmental websites in Spain and in the Nederlands, to compare trends. Our results show that the 'peak' of infection is already behind us in both countries, but also demonstrate that there is a danger of rebound of a spread. It is obvious that measures imposed are giving the results, but we should be precarious of near future practices and developments since the majority of population will still be without immunity.


title: Directiva sanitaria para garantizar la salud de las gestantes y la continuidad de la atención en planificación familiar ante la infección por COVID-19/ Health directive to guarantee the health of pregnant women and the continuity of care in family planning for COVID-19 infection

text: El documento contiene las disposiciones para realizar las actividades de atención de la salud materna relacionadas con las prestaciones que contribuyan a la prevención, reducción y manejo de los casos de gestantes y puérperas sospechosas o infectadas por el COVID-19, y para mantener la continuidad de la provisión de métodos anticonceptivos a la población que lo requiera.


Endothelial cell dysfunction: a major player in SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19)?


title: Ultrastructural Evidence for Direct Renal Infection with SARS-CoV-2

text: BACKGROUND: A significant fraction of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) display abnormalities in renal function. Retrospective studies of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, report an incidence of 3%-7% progressing to ARF, a marker of poor prognosis. The cause of the renal failure in COVID-19 is unknown, but one hypothesized mechanism is direct renal infection by the causative virus, SARS-CoV-2. METHODS: We performed an autopsy on a single patient who died of COVID-19 after open repair of an aortic dissection, complicated by hypoxic respiratory failure and oliguric renal failure. We used light and electron microscopy to examine renal tissue for evidence of SARS-CoV-2 within renal cells. RESULTS: Light microscopy of proximal tubules showed geographic isometric vacuolization, corresponding to a focus of tubules with abundant intracellular viral arrays. Individual viruses averaged 76 µm in diameter and had an envelope studded with crown-like, electron-dense spikes. Vacuoles contained double-membrane vesicles suggestive of partially assembled virus. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of viral particles in the renal tubular epithelium that were morphologically identical to SARS-CoV-2, and with viral arrays and other features of virus assembly, provide evidence of a productive direct infection of the kidney by SARS-CoV-2. This finding offers confirmatory evidence that direct renal infection occurs in the setting of AKI in COVID-19. However, the frequency and clinical significance of direct infection in COVID-19 is unclear. Tubular isometric vacuolization observed with light microscopy, which correlates with double-membrane vesicles containing vacuoles observed with electronic microscopy, may be a useful histologic marker for active SARS-CoV-2 infection in kidney biopsy or autopsy specimens.


Effects of COVID 19 pandemic in daily life


Pooled Prevalence of Diarrhea Among COVID-19 Patients


title: Day Level Forecasting for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Spread: Analysis, Modeling and Recommendations

text: In mid of March 2020, Coronaviruses such as COVID-19 is declared as an international epidemic. More than 125000 confirmed cases and 4,607 death cases have been recorded around more than 118 countries. Unfortunately, a coronavirus vaccine is expected to take at least 18 months if it works at all. Moreover, COVID -19 epidemics can mutate into a more aggressive form. Day level information about the COVID -19 spread is crucial to measure the behavior of this new virus globally. Therefore, this study presents a comparison of day level forecasting models on COVID-19 affected cases using time series models and mathematical formulation. The forecasting models and data strongly suggest that the number of coronavirus cases grows exponentially in countries that do not mandate quarantines, restrictions on travel and public gatherings, and closing of schools, universities, and workplaces (Social Distancing).


CT, [18F]FDG-PET/CT and clinical findings before and during early Covid-19 onset in a patient affected by vascular tumour


title: Global Reach of an Online COVID-19 Course in Multiple Languages on OpenWHO in the First Quarter of 2020: Analysis of Platform Use Data

text: BACKGROUND: At the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, the World Health Organization's (WHO) Health Emergencies Learning and Capacity Development Unit, together with the WHO's health technical lead on coronaviruses, developed a massive open online course within 3 weeks as part of the global response to the emergency. The introductory coronavirus disease (COVID19) course was launched on January 26, 2020, on the health emergencies learning platform OpenWHO.org. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper is to investigate the geographic reach of different language courses accessed by a worldwide audience seeking information on COVID-19. Users' professional identities and backgrounds were explored to inform course owners on the use case. The course was developed and delivered via the open-access learning platform OpenWHO.org. The self-paced resources are available in a total of 13 languages and were produced between January 26 and March 25, 2020. METHODS: Data were collected from the online courses' statistical data and metrics reporting system on the OpenWHO platform. User patterns and locations were analyzed based on Google Analytics and the platform's own statistics capabilities, and data sets were overlaid. This analysis was conducted based on user location, with the data disaggregated according to the six WHO regions, the top 10 countries, and the proportion of use for each language version. Data included affiliation, gender, age, and other parameters for 32.43% (52,214/161,007) of the users who indicated their background. RESULTS: As of March 25, 2020, the introductory COVID-19 course totaled 232,890 enrollments across all languages. The Spanish language course was comprised of more than half (n=118,754, 50.99%) of all course enrollments, and the English language course was comprised of 38.21% (n=88,988) of enrollments. The WHO's Region of the Americas accounted for most of the course enrollments, with more than 72.47% (138,503/191,130) enrollment across all languages. Other regions were more evenly distributed with less than 10% enrollment for each. A total of 32.43% (52,214/161,007) of users specified a professional affiliation by choosing from the 12 most common backgrounds in the OpenWHO user profiles. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, users were spread over the 11 distinct affiliations, with a small fraction of users identifying themselves as "Other." With the COVID-19 introductory course, the largest number of users selected "Other" (16,527/52,214, 31.65%), suggesting a large number of users who were not health professionals or academics. The top 10 countries with the most users across all languages were Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Mexico, Peru, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. CONCLUSIONS: The online course has addressed a worldwide learning need by providing WHO's technical guidance packaged in simple formats for access and use. The learning material development was expedited to meet the onset of the epidemic. Initial data suggest that the various language versions of the course, in particular Spanish, have reached new user groups, fulfilling the platform's aim of providing learning everywhere to anyone that is interested. User surveys will be carried out to measure the real impact.


title: Chest CT Findings in Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19): Relationship to Duration of Infection

text: In this retrospective study, chest CTs of 121 symptomatic patients infected with coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) from four centers in China from January 18, 2020 to February 2, 2020 were reviewed for common CT findings in relationship to the time between symptom onset and the initial CT scan (i.e. early, 0-2 days (36 patients), intermediate 3-5 days (33 patients), late 6-12 days (25 patients)). The hallmarks of COVID-19 infection on imaging were bilateral and peripheral ground-glass and consolidative pulmonary opacities. Notably, 20/36 (56%) of early patients had a normal CT. With a longer time after the onset of symptoms, CT findings were more frequent, including consolidation, bilateral and peripheral disease, greater total lung involvement, linear opacities, "crazy-paving" pattern and the "reverse halo" sign. Bilateral lung involvement was observed in 10/36 early patients (28%), 25/33 intermediate patients (76%), and 22/25 late patients (88%).


Detect to protect: pneumoperitoneum gas samples for SARS-CoV-2 and biohazard testing


The COVID-19 response must be disability inclusive


title: Review: Graphene-based biosensor for Viral Detection

text: Viral infections are among the main reasons for serious pandemics and contagious infections; hence, they cause thousands of fatalities and economic losses annually. In the case of COVID-19, world economies have shut down for months, and physical distancing along with drastic changes in the social behavior of many humans has generated many issues for all countries. Thus, a rapid, low-cost, and sensitive viral detection method is critical to upgrade the living standards of humans while exploiting biomedicine, environmental science, bioresearch, and biosecurity. The emergence of various carbon-based nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes, graphene, and carbon nanoparticles provided a great possibility for researchers to develop a new and wide variety of biosensors. In particular, graphene has become a promising tool for biosensor fabrication owing to its many interesting properties, such as its exceptional conductivity, ultrahigh electron mobility, and excellent thermal conductivity. This paper provides an overall perspective of graphene-based biosensors and a critical review of the recent advances in graphene-based biosensors that are used to detect different types of viruses, such as Ebola, Zika, and influenza.


The role of CT in case ascertainment and management of COVID-19 pneumonia in the UK: insights from high-incidence regions


title: Home testing for COVID-19: lessons from direct to consumer genetics

text: On March 11th, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a worldwide pandemic. Publicly available testing has lagged, and tech entrepreneurs have quickly volunteered to fill this gap. Over the last two decades, genetic testing ordered outside of a clinic and without the involvement of a physician has been a way for the average individual to get genetic testing. In this commentary, we discuss the lessons learned from this parallel case from genetics and suggest regulatory caution in establishing direct-to-consumer COVID testing.


title: A Measurement of Transportation Ban inside Wuhan on the COVID-19 Epidemic by Vehicle Detection in Remote Sensing Imagery

text: Wuhan, the biggest city in China's central region with a population of more than 11 million, was shut down to control the COVID-19 epidemic on 23 January, 2020. Even though many researches have studied the travel restriction between cities and provinces, few studies focus on the transportation control inside the city, which may be due to the lack of the measurement of the transportation ban. Therefore, we evaluate the implementation of transportation ban policy inside the city by extracting motor vehicles on the road from two high-resolution remote sensing image sets before and after Wuhan lockdown. In order to detect vehicles from the remote sensing image datasets with the resolution of 0.8m accurately, we proposed a novel method combining anomaly detection, region grow and deep learning. The vehicle numbers in Wuhan dropped with a percentage of at least 63.31% caused by COVID-19. Considering fewer interferences, the dropping percentages of ring road and high-level road should be more representative with the value of 84.81% and 80.22%. The districts located in city center were more intensively affected by the transportation ban. Since the public transportations have been shut down, the significant reduction of motor vehicles indicates that the lockdown policy in Wuhan show effectiveness in controlling human transmission inside the city.


Brazil undermines parks by relocating staff


title: Correction to: COVID-19 and heme oxygenase: novel insight into the disease and potential therapies

text: In the original publication, one of the last paragraphs should have read as follows.


Clinical Performance of the Roche SARS-CoV-2 Serologic Assay


Health Professions' Educators (HPEs) and their learners have to adapt their educational provision to rapidly changing and uncertain circumstances linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper reports on an AMEE-hosted webinar: Adapting to the impact of COVID-19: Sharing stories, sharing practice. Attended by over 500 colleagues from five continents, this webinar focused on the impact of the virus across the continuum of education and training. Short formal presentations on teaching and learning, assessment, selection and postgraduate training generated wide-ranging questions via the Chatbox. A thematic analysis of the Chatbox thread indicated the most pressing concerns and challenges educators were experiencing in having to adapt programmes and learning across the continuum of medical education and training. The main areas of concern were: campus-based teaching and learning; clinical teaching; selection and assessment, and educator needs. While there is clearly no one simple solution to the unprecedented issues medical education and training face currently, there were two over-arching messages. First, this is a time for colleagues across the globe to help and support each other. Second, many local responses and innovations could have the potential to change the shape of medical education and training in the future.


title: Glycyrrhizin: An alternative drug for the treatment of COVID-19 infection and the associated respiratory syndrome?

text: Safe and efficient drugs to combat the current COVID-19 pandemic are urgently needed. In this context, we have analyzed the anti-coronavirus potential of the natural product glycyrrhizic acid (GLR), a drug used to treat liver diseases (including viral hepatitis) and specific cutaneous inflammation (such as atopic dermatitis) in some countries. The properties of GLR and its primary active metabolite glycyrrhetinic acid are presented and discussed. GLR has shown activities against different viruses, including SARS-associated Human and animal coronaviruses. GLR is a non-hemolytic saponin and a potent immuno-active anti-inflammatory agent which displays both cytoplasmic and membrane effects. At the membrane level, GLR induces cholesterol-dependent disorganization of lipid rafts which are important for the entry of coronavirus into cells. At the intracellular and circulating levels, GLR can trap the high mobility group box 1 protein and thus blocks the alarmin functions of HMGB1. We used molecular docking to characterize further and discuss both the cholesterol- and HMG box-binding functions of GLR. The membrane and cytoplasmic effects of GLR, coupled with its long-established medical use as a relatively safe drug, make GLR a good candidate to be tested against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, alone and in combination with other drugs. The rational supporting combinations with (hydroxy)chloroquine and tenofovir (two drugs active against SARS-CoV-2) is also discussed. Based on this analysis, we conclude that GLR should be further considered and rapidly evaluated for the treatment of patients with COVID-19.


Schrödinger's Resident: Redeployment in the Age of COVID-19


Covid-19 - The Law and Limits of Quarantine


title: Implementation science in times of Covid-19

text: The emergence of SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 affects all of us and is associated with rapid and massive changes in healthcare and societies. As a response, a range of interventions for patients and populations have been implemented in health and preventive settings, or need to be implemented in the short and long term. Implementation science offers a multidisciplinary perspective and systematic approach for the design, evaluation and analysis of programmes and policies to enhance implementation. The emergence of Covid-19 provides an urgent need to develop new perspectives and approaches in implementation science, such as the addition of innovative and rigorous approaches to the collection, use and analysis of 'real-world' data. Above all, we hope that implementation scientists will focus on what they can contribute to manage Covid-19 and its consequences for people, healthcare and society.


COVID-19 and drug-induced liver injury: a problem of plenty or a petty point?


docid: urgdnnxu

title: Morphological changes in a case of SARS-CoV-2 infection


title: Comorbidities in COVID-19: Outcomes in hypertensive cohort and controversies with renin angiotensin system blockers

text: BACKGROUND AND AIMS: COVID-19 is already a pandemic. Emerging data suggest an increased association and a heightened mortality in patients of COVID-19 with comorbidities. We aimed to evaluate the outcome in hypertensive patients with COVID-19 and its relation to the use of renin-angiotensin system blockers (RASB). METHODS: We have systematically searched the medical database up to March 27, 2020 and retrieved all the published articles in English language related to our topic using MeSH key words. RESULTS: From the pooled data of all ten available Chinese studies (n = 2209) that have reported the characteristics of comorbidities in patients with COVID-19, hypertension was present in nearly 21%, followed by diabetes in nearly 11%, and established cardiovascular disease (CVD) in approximately 7% of patients. Although the emerging data hints to an increase in mortality in COVID-19 patients with known hypertension, diabetes and CVD, it should be noted that it was not adjusted for multiple confounding factors. Harm or benefit in COVID-19 patients receiving RASB has not been typically assessed in these studies yet, although mechanistically and plausibly both, benefit and harm is possible with these agents, given that COVID-19 expresses to tissues through the receptor of angiotensin converting enzyme-2. CONCLUSION: Special attention is definitely required in patients with COVID-19 with associated comorbidities including hypertension, diabetes and established CVD. Although the role of RASB has a mechanistic equipoise, patients with COVID-19 should not stop these drugs at this point of time, as recommended by various world organizations and without the advice of health care provider.


title: Sub-continental Atmosphere and Inherent Immune System may have Impact on Novel Corona Virus' 2019 (nCovid-19) Prevalence in South East Asia

text: Pandemic enveloped RNA Novel Corona Virus' 2019 (SARS-CoV-2) appears as a beating reed which induce overwhelming outbreak all over the world since November 2019 to till date. Inherent Immunity developed by traditional food habit, exposure to various antigens and vitamin D induced sunlight exposure. Meteorological parameters are the important factors which influencing the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) like infectious disease. Aim of this review to enhance our knowledge and explore the association among build up immunity, weather parameters and Corona virus disease (COVID-19) death. In this review we emphasize role of meteorological factor included degree of sun exposure and effect of temperature on enveloped lipid bi-layer structure of Novel corona virus. These meteorological factors and inherent immunity may have impact on SARS-CoV-2 incidence among South East Asian including Bangladeshi. In summary, this study suggests that temperature-humidity variation, inherent immunity and lower life expectancy of South East Asia may be important.


Post-pandemic economic overhaul will take more than tweaks