Editor's Note During the first 3 weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak in the Seattle area, the most common reasons for ICU admission were hypoxemic respiratory failure leading to mechanical ventilation and/or hypotension requiring vasopressor treatment, and mortality was high in these critically ill patients, this study finds. In this analysis…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on March 31 issued a statement saying it supports letting healthcare staff bring their own standard face masks or respirators from home when their facilities cannot provide access to protective equipment that is equivalent to their exposure risk, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In taking this…

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Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons (ACS) on April 2 issued a statement on shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), including face masks, gowns, and respirators, during the COVID pandemic. ACS says it believes it is essential that surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists, and other healthcare personnel speak freely, without fear…

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Editor's Note In this study, researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, in partnership with Wenzhou Central Hospital and Cangnan People’s Hospital in Wenzhou, China, developed an artificial intelligence (AI) framework that accurately predicted which patients newly infected with…

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Editor's Note Specialists like cardiac and orthopedic surgical teams as well as anesthesiologists and cardiologists are being redeployed in hospitals to help treat the rising number of COVID-19 patients, the March 30 Modern Healthcare reports. What used to be the heart team at Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Morningside is now a…

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Editor's Note In 22 patients in China with confirmed COVID-19 infection, sputum and feces remained positive for SARS-CoV-2 after pharyngeal samples were negative, this study finds. A total of 545 specimens were collected from the 22 COVID-19 patients, including 209 pharyngeal swabs, 262 sputum samples, and 74 feces samples. In…

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Editor's Note California Gov Gavin Newsom is calling for retired physicians, nurses, and medical and nursing students to help staff emergency hospital sites, the March 30 Modern Healthcare reports. These sites could include the Los Angeles Coliseum and other sports arenas that will be converted to field hospitals to handle…

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Editor's Note In this preliminary uncontrolled case series of five critically ill COVID-19 and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) patients, administration of convalescent plasma containing neutralizing antibody was followed by improvement in their clinical status. All five patients (age 36-65 years, 2 women and 3 men) were on mechanical ventilation,…

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Editor's Note The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on March 29 that the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) had issued an emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19. The FDA allowed for the drugs to be “donated to the Strategic National Stockpile…

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Editor's Note This study represents the first description of critically ill patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the US. These patients had a high rate of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and a high risk of death, similar to patients in China. A total of 21 patients with a mean age…

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