Rapid Development and Deployment of Respiratory Evaluation Clinics in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic to Keep Staff and Patients Safe

2021 ◽  
pp. 38-42
Author(s):  
Charles Haddad ◽  
Christopher Scuderi ◽  
Judelle Haddad-Lacle ◽  
Reetu Grewal ◽  
Jeffrey Jacqmein ◽  
...  

The world as we knew it changed at the beginning of 2020 with the explosion of the global pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, a.k.a. COVID-19. As of January 10, 2021, the novel coronavirus has infected over 89 million people worldwide and killed over 1.9 million. In the U.S., there have been 22 million people infected and 373,000 deaths. It has never been more important to protect our vulnerable patients and staff from infectious disease, especially during the time they spend in our offices and clinics. It quickly became apparent that there was a need for a dedicated location where patients could be seen that were too ill to be evaluated via telemedicine, but not ill enough to be sent to the Emergency Department (ED). To fill this need, our primary care network developed the Respiratory Evaluation Clinic (REC) concept. These were two geographical locations where the outlying clinics could send potentially infectious patients to evaluate and test COVID-19. Some recommendations, adaptations, lessons learned and the REC clinics' expansions to other locations throughout our network are discussed.

Author(s):  
Sai Krishna Gudi ◽  
Komal Krishna Tiwari

In a short span, a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has captured global consciousness by significantly affecting the day-to-day life of humans and emerged as a public health emergency. Undoubtedly, it indicates that lessons learnt from the past epidemics of coronaviruses such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), had not enough and thus left us ill-prepared to deal with the challenges that COVID-19 pandemic is currently posing. Currently, as a global pandemic, COVID-19 poses major challenges and thus forcing the entire world to lockdown. However, the disease has prepared humankind in facing such outbreaks at present as well as in the future. Besides, it has also taught numerous lessons that are worth considering and implementing to make the world a better reality.


Author(s):  
Ekta Shirbhate ◽  
Preeti Patel ◽  
Vijay K Patel ◽  
Ravichandran Veerasamy ◽  
Prabodh C Sharma ◽  
...  

: The novel coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), a global pandemic that emerged from Wuhan, China has today travelled all around the world, so far 216 countries or territories with 21,732,472 people infected and 770,866 deaths globally (as per WHO COVID-19 update dated August 18, 2020). Continuous efforts are being made to repurpose the existing drugs and develop vaccines for combating this infection. Despite, to date, no certified antiviral treatment or vaccine prevails. Although, few candidates have displayed their efficacy in in vitro studies and are being repurposed for COVID-19 treatment. This article summarizes synthetic and semi-synthetic compounds displaying potent activity in their clinical experiences or studies against COVID-19 and also focuses on mode of action of drugs being repositioned against COVID-19.


European View ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-163
Author(s):  
Nad’a Kovalčíková ◽  
Ariane Tabatabai

As governments and citizens around the world have struggled with the novel coronavirus, the information space has turned into a battleground. Authoritarian countries, including Russia, China and Iran, have spread disinformation on the causes of and responses to the pandemic. The over-abundance of information, also referred to as an ‘infodemic’, including manipulated information, has been both a cause and a result of the exacerbation of the public health crisis. It is further undermining trust in democratic institutions, the independent press, and facts and data, and exacerbating the rising tensions driven by economic, political and societal challenges. This article discusses the challenges democracies have faced and the measures they have adopted to counter information manipulation that impedes public health efforts. It draws seven lessons learned from the information war and offers a set of recommendations on tackling future infodemics related to public health.


Author(s):  
Renée Belliveau

After the World Health Organization declared the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) a global pandemic in March 2020, they cautioned of another outbreak: an “infodemic.” This study examines how online search engines are influencing the global spread of immunization information about COVID-19. It aims to address the various ways in which search technology is shaping users’ perceptions of the pandemic and to measure the credibility of the sources they provide.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Divyansh Sehgal

As humans are spreading throughout the world, infectious diseases have been a constant companion such as Bubonic Plague (200 Million deaths), 17th Century Great Plague (3 Million deaths), Plague of Justinian (30-50 Million deaths), etc . Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) which was published on 11th January 2020 showing the intensity of Global research and development activity to develop a drug/vaccine against the disease. COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. Human to human transmission has created a pandemic situation across the world. Pharmaceutical companies play a crucial role in this scenario to provide Drugs/Vaccines/Therapies to treat and tackle the novel coronavirus disease of 2019. This paper consists of the Drugs and Vaccines which are developed, or in the process of development , their current stage of development (clinical trials) with their patent review.


2020 ◽  
Vol 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen Ling ◽  
Xianjie Wen

Abstract The outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia (coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)), declared as a ‘global pandemic’ by the World Health Organization (WHO), is a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). The outbreak in multiple locations shows a trend of accelerating spread around the world. China has taken a series of powerful measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to actively finding effective treatment drugs and developing vaccines, it is more important to identify the source of infection at the community level as soon as possible to block the transmission path of the virus to prevent the spread of the pandemic. The implementation of grid management in the community and the adoption of precise management and control measures to reduce unnecessary personnel movement can effectively reduce the risk of pandemic spread. This paper mainly describes that the grid management mode can promote the refinement and comprehensiveness of community management. As a management system with potential to improve the governance ability of community affairs, it may be helpful to strengthen the prevention and control of the epidemic in the community.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian McCulloh ◽  
Kevin Kiernan ◽  
Trevor Kent

The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, commonly known as COVID19 has become a global pandemic in early 2020. The world has mounted a global social distancing intervention on a scale thought unimaginable prior to this outbreak; however, the economic impact and sustainability limits of this policy create significant challenges for government leaders around the world. Understanding the future spread and growth of COVID19 is further complicated by data quality issues due to high numbers of asymptomatic patients who may transmit the disease yet show no symptoms; lack of testing resources; failure of recovered patients to be counted; delays in reporting hospitalizations and deaths; and the co-morbidity of other life-threatening illnesses. We propose a Monte Carlo method for inferring true case counts from observed deaths using clinical estimates of Infection Fatality Ratios and Time to Death. Findings indicate that current COVID19 confirmed positive counts represent a small fraction of actual cases, and that even relatively effective surveillance regimes fail to identify all infectious individuals. We further demonstrate that the miscount also distorts officials' ability to discern the peak of an epidemic, confounding efforts to assess the efficacy of various interventions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 86-90
Author(s):  
Renata Gerculy ◽  
Camelia Libenciuc ◽  
Nora Rat ◽  
Monica Chitu ◽  
Imre Benedek

AbstractThe novel coronavirus disease first appeared in Wuhan (China) is an infectious disease spreading throughout the world, causing life-threatening conditions in vulnerable or even healthy individuals. The great impact of this virus on healthcare urges physicians to investigate all aspects of the disease in order to overcome its complications. A particularly investigated aspect of the SARS-CoV-2 infection is represented by the coagulation disorders among infected and critically ill patients. Several studies observed modified blood coagulation parameters such as D-dimers, fibrinogen, and coagulation times. Moreover, the severe thrombotic complications, mainly pulmonary embolism, could be responsible for the high mortality and poorer outcomes of COVID-19 infected patients. The aim of this article is to present the current knowledge related to thrombosis predisposition in patients infected with the new coronavirus.


Author(s):  
Willem G. Odendaal

AbstractThe emergence of the novel coronavirus (a.k.a. COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2) out of Wuhan, Hubei Province, China caught the world by surprise. As the outbreak began to spread outside of China, too little was known about the virus to model its transmission with any acceptable accuracy. World governments responded to rampant misinformation about the virus leading to collateral disasters, such as plunging financial markets, that could have been avoided if better models of the outbreak had been available. This is an engineering approach to model the spread of a new infectious disease from sparse data when little is known about the infectious agent itself. The paper is not so much about the model itself - because there are many good scientific approaches to model an epidemic - as it is about crunching numbers when there are barely any numbers to crunch. The coronavirus outbreak in USA is used to illustrate the implementation of this modeling approach. A Monte Carlo approach is implemented by using incubation period and testing efficiency as variables. Among others it is demonstrated that imposing early travel restrictions from infected countries slowed down the outbreak in the USA by about 26 days.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (05) ◽  
pp. A09
Author(s):  
Wishes Mututwa ◽  
Trust Matsilele

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) which was first reported in China's Wuhan province in December 2019 became a global pandemic within a few months. The exponential rise in COVID-19 cases globally was accompanied by a spike in misinformation about the pandemic, particularly on social media. Employing Social Network Theory as a lens, this qualitative study explores how selected international celebrities appropriated their Twitter micro-blogging pages to announce their COVID-19 infection to the world. The study finds that these celebrities can take advantage of their huge social media following to counter disinfodemic and promote awareness about health pandemics.


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