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 A new novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which causes the disease COVID-19, is the third highly pathogenic human coronavirus that has emerged in the last two decades. The other two are the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respirtory Syndrome (MERS) coronaviruses. This analysis of 22 studies finds…

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Editor's Note Because of the coronavirus outbreak and recommendations from the American College of Surgeons and US Surgeon General, healthcare systems across the US are cancelling or postponing elective surgical procedures, the March 16 Becker’s Hospital Review reports. These steps are being taken to prevent the spread of coronavirus and…

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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 The first person-to person transmission of COVID-19 occurred between two people in Illinois with prolonged, unprotected exposure while Patient 1 was symptomatic, this study finds. Patient 1, a woman in her 60s, returned from China in mid-January. One week later, she was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia…

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Editor's Note Surgisphere Corporation (Palatine, Illinois) on March 12 announced the availability of its new rapid diagnostic test for COVID-19 that uses artificial intelligence (AI). With advanced machine learning, Surgisphere has developed an intelligent tool that uses three common lab tests to identify patients likely to have COVID-19 infection. With…

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Editor's Note Combining a mathematical model of COVID-19 transmission with four datasets from within and outside Wuhan, China, researchers with the Centre for Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases COVID-19 working group, estimated how transmission in Wuhan varied between December 2019 (before travel restrictions) and February 2020 (after travel restrictions) and…

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Editor's Note The American College of Radiology (ACR) on March 11 issued a recommendation that CT scans not be used as a first-line screening test to diagnose COVID-19, the March 11 AuntMinnie.com reports. Though early reports from China indicated that CT could detect COVID-19, even when DNA tests were negative,…

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Editor's Note This study led by Johns Hopkins researchers provides additional evidence of a median incubation period of approximately 5.1 days for the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Of 181 confirmed cases of COVID-19 (from China and other countries) with identifiable exposure and symptom onset windows in the analysis, the…

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