Articles: covid-19.
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Frontiers in oncology · Jan 2020
Results of Multilevel Containment Measures to Better Protect Lung Cancer Patients From COVID-19: The IEO Model.
A novel coronavirus causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), named SARS-CoV-2, was identified at the end of 2019. The spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has progressively expanded from China, involving several countries throughout the world, leading to the classification of the disease as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to published reports, COVID-19 severity and mortality are higher in elderly patients and those with active comorbidities. ⋯ Potential risks associated with COVID-19 infection should be considered, considering tumor histology and natural course, disease setting, clinical conditions, and disease burden, together with the expected benefit, toxicities (e.g., myelosuppression or interstitial lung disease), and response obtained from the planned or ongoing treatment. In this study, we report the results of proactive measures including social media, telemedicine, and telephone triage for screening patients with lung cancer during the COVID-19 outbreak in the European Institute of Oncology (Milan, Italy). Proactive management and containment measures, applied in a structured and daily way, has significantly aided the identification of advance patients with suspected symptoms related to COVID-19, limiting their admission to our cancer center; we have thus been more able to protect other patients from possible contamination and at the same time guarantee to the suspected patients the immediate treatment and evaluation in referral hospitals for COVID-19.
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Unprecedented measures have been adopted to control the rapid spread of the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic in China. People's adherence to control measures is affected by their knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) towards COVID-19. In this study, we investigated Chinese residents' KAP towards COVID-19 during the rapid rise period of the outbreak. ⋯ Most Chinese residents of a relatively high socioeconomic status, in particular women, are knowledgeable about COVID-19, hold optimistic attitudes, and have appropriate practices towards COVID-19. Health education programs aimed at improving COVID-19 knowledge are helpful for Chinese residents to hold optimistic attitudes and maintain appropriate practices. Due to the limited sample representativeness, we must be cautious when generalizing these findings to populations of a low socioeconomic status.
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J Investig Med High Impact Case Rep · Jan 2020
Case ReportsHabit Mimics the Illness: EVALI During the Era of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Globally, health care providers have been challenged to provide adequate care during the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Due to the ever changing and rapidly evolving nature of the novel coronavirus, there is increased public anxiety and knowledge gaps that have created major dilemmas in health care delivery. In this environment, there is tremendous pressure on clinicians to diagnose each and every case of COVID-19. ⋯ It is unknown if vaping puts patients at higher risk of respiratory failure if coinfected with COVID-19. Therefore, exposure history in patients presenting with pneumonia-like syndrome is important. Physicians should be aware of the overlap between these conditions and should pay particular attention during history taking to distinguish EVALI from COVID-19 pneumonia.
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Ethnicity & disease · Jan 2020
EditorialIncorporating Health Equity and Community Perspectives During COVID-19: Commonalities with Cardiovascular Health Equity Research.
The COVID-19 pandemic is revealing the deeply entrenched structural inequities in health that exist in the United States. We draw parallels between the COVID-19 pandemic and our cardiovascular health equity research focused on physical activity and diabetes to highlight three common needs: 1) access to timely and disaggregated data; 2) how to integrate community-engaged approaches in telehealth; and 3) policy initiatives that explicitly integrate health equity and social justice principles and action. We suggest that a similar sense of urgency regarding COVID-19 should be applied to slow the burgeoning costs and suffering associated with cardiovascular disease overall and in marginalized communities specifically. We remain hopeful that the current crisis can serve as a guide for aligning our principles as a just and democratic society with a health agenda that explicitly recognizes that social inequities in health for some impacts all members of society.
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In pandemics, because of increased demand and subsequent shortage of commercial facemasks, people need to use cloth facemasks, although such masks are reported to provide reduced protection. These masks can be prepared in local levels from different fabric materials. In developing countries, cloth masks are preferable because of low cost and added advantages of reusability. The filtering performance of a cloth facemask depends on the facial fit and on the material properties of fabrics such as porosity, yarn spacing or packing, and pore size. In resource limited settings, an affordable and easy to implement method that can assess the surface properties of cloth facemask fabrics would be important. ⋯ Out of the 16 masks examined, we found very diverse yarn packing and pore morphology (pore size and shape) in the fabrics. The pore size ranged from ~80 to 720 μm; much larger than respiratory droplet and bio-aerosol. This observation partly explains why such cloth facemasks provide reduced protection to the user during pandemics. The performance of a cloth facemask partly depends on the material properties of fabric such as yarn packing, pore size, porosity. Therefore, the surface properties of fabrics obtained from the smartphone method can be used to get preliminary idea on the facemask quality. We believe that the method can be an affordable and rapid method for selection of better fabrics for cloth facemask during pandemics.