Articles: pandemics.
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Given the increasing numbers of ethical and legal issues arising from the COVID-19 epidemic, particularly in respect of patient-doctor confidentiality, doctors must explain to patients how the measures taken to combat the spread of the virus impact on their confidentiality. Patients must be reassured that doctors are ethically bound to continue to respect such confidentiality, but it should be made clear to them that doctors must also comply with the demands of the law. While the Constitution, statutory law and the common law all recognise a person's right to privacy, during extraordinary times such as the COVID-19 pandemic, confidentiality must be breached to a degree to halt the spread of the virus.
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MMWR Morb. Mortal. Wkly. Rep. · Apr 2020
Cleaning and Disinfectant Chemical Exposures and Temporal Associations with COVID-19 - National Poison Data System, United States, January 1, 2020-March 31, 2020.
On January 19, 2020, the state of Washington reported the first U. S. laboratory-confirmed case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by infection with SARS-CoV-2 (1). As of April 19, a total of 720,630 COVID-19 cases and 37,202 associated deaths* had been reported to CDC from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four U. ⋯ Call data from poison centers are uploaded in near real-time to NPDS. During January-March 2020, poison centers received 45,550 exposure calls related to cleaners (28,158) and disinfectants (17,392), representing overall increases of 20.4% and 16.4% from January-March 2019 (37,822) and January-March 2018 (39,122), respectively. Although NPDS data do not provide information showing a definite link between exposures and COVID-19 cleaning efforts, there appears to be a clear temporal association with increased use of these products.
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Testing for the presence of coronavirus is an essential diagnostic tool for monitoring and managing the current COVID-19 pandemic. The only reliable test in current use for testing acute infection targets the genome of SARS-CoV-2, and the most widely used method is quantitative fluorescence-based reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). ⋯ This has resulted in widespread misrepresentation of the problems faced using this test during the current COVID-19 epidemic. This primer provides simple, straightforward and impartial information about RT-qPCR.