Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention on March 17 updated its strategies for optimizing personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies, including facemasks. The strategies are based on surge capacity and include: *Conventional capacity: Patient care is provided without any change in daily practices. Use facemasks according to product…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on March 18 released recommendations that all elective surgeries and nonessential medical, surgical, and dental procedures be delayed during the COVID-19 outbreak. As more healthcare providers are asked to assist with the COVID-19 response, it is important that they consider…

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Editor's Note This commentary by Andrea Cruz, MD, MPH, pediatric emergency medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and Steven Zeichner, MD, PhD, head of pediatric infectious diseases University of Virginia Health, Charlottesville, who are associate editors for Pediatrics, notes that it is crucial to understand how the COVID-19 virus affects…

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Editor's Note In consultation with clinical experts and in response to government guidance that hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) postpone elective surgical procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA) released a statement March 18 on how and when facilities should proceed with cases that should…

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Editor's Note Of 41 healthcare workers who were exposed to aerosol-generating procedures for at least 10 minutes at a distance of 6.5 feet from a patient with severe pneumonia before he was diagnosed with COVID-19, none contracted the disease. The patient, a middle-aged man with diabetes and hyperlipidemia, was hospitalized…

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Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons (ACS) on March 13 updated its recommendations for the management of elective surgical procedures during the COVID-19 outbreak. Among the recommendations: Each hospital, healthcare system, and surgeon should: review all scheduled elective procedures with a plan to minimize, postpone, or cancel elective operations,…

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Editor's Note This retrospective, multicenter study from four hospitals in Wuhan, China, found that Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) specific guidelines for emergency surgical procedures in patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infection can effectively prevent cross-infection in the OR. The guidelines include: negative pressure ORs level 3 protective measures for…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on March 2 announced that it had joined with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to make more respirators, including certain N95s, available to healthcare personnel during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Currently, the majority of respirators are used in industrial…

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Editor's Note In a February 25 telebriefing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned that the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) will spread in the US, and hospitals and communities should begin ramping up their preparedness efforts, AHA Today reports. The CDC urged communities to implement non-pharmaceutical interventions or community…

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Editor's Note Hospitals should prepare now for an influx of seriously ill patients infected with the new coronavirus (COVID-19), critical care specialists advised in a panel discussion February 17 at the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s annual congress in Orlando, Florida. A significant influx of seriously ill patients will put…

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