Articles: coronavirus.
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Emerging Infect. Dis. · Dec 2020
Detection and Characterization of Bat Sarbecovirus Phylogenetically Related to SARS-CoV-2, Japan.
Epidemiology of bat Betacoronavirus, subgenus Sarbecovirus is largely unknown, especially outside China. We detected a sarbecovirus phylogenetically related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 from Rhinolophus cornutus bats in Japan. The sarbecovirus' spike protein specifically recognizes angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 of R. cornutus, but not humans, as an entry receptor.
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Emergency radiology · Dec 2020
The role of initial chest X-ray in triaging patients with suspected COVID-19 during the pandemic.
The purpose of our research is to evaluate the usefulness of chest X-ray for triaging patients with suspected COVID-19 infection. ⋯ Initial chest X-ray is a useful tool for triaging those subjects who might have poor outcomes with suspected COVID-19 infection and benefit most from hospitalization.
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The current COVID-19 outbreak in conjunction with the need to provide safe dental treatments and the limited knowledge on the efficacy of protective measures has posed dentists into a challenging situation. Therefore, the present article aimed at collecting experiences and recommendations of frontline clinical experts on critical aspects of dental treatment provision during pandemic. ⋯ The limitation of aerosol-generating procedures along with the usage of adequate personal protection equipment was considered to be crucial to protect dental healthcare providers and patients, thus reducing the transmission risk of COVID-19.
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Environmental research · Dec 2020
An index to quantify environmental risk of exposure to future epidemics of the COVID-19 and similar viral agents: Theory and practice.
In the presence of the novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) and other new viral agents, one of the fundamental problems in science is the evaluation of environmental and social weaknesses of cities/regions to the exposure of infectious diseases for preventing and/or containing new COVID-19 outbreaks and the diffusion of other viral agents that generate a negative impact on public health and economy of countries. The current monitoring of transmission dynamics of infectious diseases is mainly based on reproduction number (R0) and fatality rates. However, this approach is a real-time monitoring of transmission dynamics for mitigating the numbers of COVID-19 related infected individuals and deaths. ⋯ Index c has a range from 1 (environmental and social weakness of urban areas leading to high levels of exposure to infectious diseases) to 0 (environment that reduces the risk of exposure to infectious diseases in society). The statistical evidence here, applied on case study of Italy, seems in general to support the predictive capacity of the Index c as a particularly simple but superior indicator in detecting the global correlation between potential risk of exposure of cities/regions to infectious diseases and actual risk given by infected individuals and deaths of the COVID-19. The Index c can support a proactive environmental strategy to help policymakers to prevent future pandemics similar to the COVID-19.