Acute medicine
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COVID-19 has challenged healthcare providers and systems. It has dominated the international news agenda for the majority of 2020; arguably opinion becoming more fractured and disparate as the pandemic has evolved. The changing tone of discourse is concerning, although perhaps not surprising.
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Point-of-care lung ultrasound (POCUS) has been advocated as a tool to assess the severity of COVID19 and thereby aid risk stratification. ⋯ A simple aggregated score formed by the summating the degree of pleural and interstitial change within six anatomical lung zones showed good discriminatory performance in predicting a range of adverse outcomes in patients with suspected COVID-19.
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COVID-19 pneumonia produces a heterogeneous array of clinical, biochemical, and radiological findings. Over the last few months of global hurry to optimize a testing strategy, it has been suggested that bedside point-of-care lung ultrasound may have a diagnostic role. We present 3 patients with RT-PCR nasopharyngeal swab-confirmed COVID-19 pneumonia, who had an admission plain chest film reported to be normal by a consultant radiologist, but with significant sonographic abnormalities on bedside ultrasound performed within 24 hours of the chest radiograph. Lung ultrasound may better correlate with the oxygen requirement and overall condition of the patient than chest radiographs - a pertinent consideration given the imminent advance of the pandemic into resource-poor zones where timely access to roentgenological imaging may be sparse.
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We write this letter as doctors and proud members of the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community from a South Asian background. Recent Office for National Statistics (ONS) data suggest that the BAME population is disproportionately affected by Covid-19. Observations and experiences from within our family and wider community led us to explore how cultural aspects may account for these figures. Both intrinsic and extrinsic factors are likely to contribute to this unfortunate statistic.