News Covid-19: Experts question guidance to reuse PPE Abi Rimmer BMJ 2020; 369: m1577 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1577 (Published 20 April 2020) Doctors have expressed concern over new guidance from Public Health England that recommends reusing personal protective equipment in the face of shortages.1 The guidance, which also recommends alternatives for unavailable equipment, has been seen as an admission by the government of the PPE shortages facing h...

Association of ACE Inhibitors and COVID-19 Severity or Risk of Death The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a significant number of deaths worldwide. Clinicians are still unclear as to who might be more susceptible to the infection and the factors associated with increased mortality. Laboratory data have shown that the angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE-2) serves as the receptor for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus to gain entry into airway cells. Thus, a...

Research Letter April 10, 2020 Seasonal Influenza Activity During the SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak in Japan Haruka Sakamoto, Masahiro Ishikane, Peter Ueda JAMA. Published online April 10, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.6173 Since the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak began, measures for avoiding disease transmission have been widely promoted in Japan, such as use of masks and handwashing, remote work, and cancellation of ...

Convalescent Plasma for COVID-19 Deaths from COVID-19 continue to increase, forcing clinicians to try therapies that are not backed by strong clinical evidence.  One such treatment is convalescent plasma. This century old treatment has been used on and off during infectious disease outbreaks. In 1893, German scientists used this strategy to treat patients with diphtheria. In 1901, Emil von Behring won the first Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for research...

Feature Global Health Covid-19: Why Germany’s case fatality rate seems so low Ned Stafford BMJ 2020; 369:m1395 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1395 Germany has the third highest number of coronavirus cases in Europe, but deaths are relatively few when compared with neighbouring countries. Ned Stafford explains why As the covid-19 pandemic continues to grow in severity, one of the most closely watched statistics has been Germany’s number of ...

Clinical Course and Prognosis of COVID-19 - Experience from Wuhan In early December 2019, the coronavirus disease (COVID 19) outbreak was first reported in the city of Wuhan, China. Early reports indicated that the virus was acquired from bats. Several epidemiological studies have linked the exposure to COVID-19 to the Wuhan meat market, which sold a variety of wild live animals. Today, it is well known that human to human transmission is a common mode of spread. Once ...

Research Clinical characteristics of 113 deceased patients with coronavirus disease 2019: retrospective study Tao Chen, Di Wu, Huilong Chen, et al BMJ 2020; 368:m1091 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1091 Abstract Objective To delineate the clinical characteristics of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) who died. Design Retrospective case series. Setting Tongji Hospital in Wuhan, China. Participants Among a cohort of 799 ...

Managing COVID-19 Respiratory Distress Acute respiratory stress syndrome is one of the primary ways COVID-19 infection manifests in the patient. COVID-19 injures the vascular endothelium, which can lead to multiorgan failure even in young patients without any comorbidities. A wide variation in mortality rates indicates that the key to improving outcomes of ventilatory support could be in a case-adjusted management approach.  The goal of ventilatory support in ARDS i...

Research Viral load dynamics and disease severity in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Zhejiang province, China, January-March 2020: retrospective cohort study Shufa Zheng, Jian Fan, Fei Yu, et al BMJ 2020; 369: m1443 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1443 (Published 21 April 2020) Abstract Objective To evaluate viral loads at different stages of disease progression in patients infected with the 2019 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SA...

Can We Trust COVID-19 Research? The COVID-19 pandemic has inspired an unprecedented amount of healthcare-related research in various fields, from drug and vaccine development to epidemiological modelling. Preprints abound, but some warn about the dangers of releasing research without proper verification. You may also like: Warnings about Potential Treatments for COVID-19 “I am impressed by how quickly the scientific community has put together a lot...