Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons (ACS) on April 17 announced that the ACS, AORN, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), and American Hospital Association (AHA) together developed a roadmap to guide readiness, prioritization, and scheduling for safely resuming elective surgery. Highlights of the roadmap include: Implementing a policy for…

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Editor's Note In a cohort of SARS-CoV-2 positive healthcare workers (HCW) residing in King County, Washington, this study found that symptom screening only for fever, cough, shortness of breath, or sore throat might have missed 17% of symptomatic HCW at the time of illness onset, and expanding criteria to include…

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Editor' Note The American College of Surgeons (ACS) on April 17 released a new document, “Local Resumption of Elective Surgery Guidance,” to help healthcare facilities prepare to resume elective surgery once COVID-19 has peaked in their area. The document includes four categories: COVID Awareness—addresses the community’s COVID-19 numbers, including prevalence,…

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Editor's Note In this study, unprotected, prolonged patient contact and certain exposures, including aerosol-generating procedures, were linked to SARS-CoV-2 infection in healthcare workers (HCW) exposed to a hospitalized patient with unrecognized COVID-19 in Solano County, California. Of 121 HCW exposed to a patient with unrecognized COVID-19, 43 became symptomatic and…

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Editor's Note Many adults with comorbid conditions lacked critical knowledge about COVID-19, and, despite concern, they did not change their routines or plans, this study finds. In this cross-sectional survey of 630 adults aged 23 to 88 years, and living with one or more chronic conditions: 24.6% were “very worried”…

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Editor's Note As hospitals face a surge of COVID-19 patients, the ability for them to care for trauma cases and medical and surgical emergencies is severely compromised. Because of this, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) on April 7 issued a statement calling for strategies to preserve capacity and capability…

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Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on April 7 issued an update on actions the agency has taken in its ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The actions include: a guidance for remote ophthalmic assessment and monitoring devices to facilitate patient care while reducing patient and healthcare provider…

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Editor's Note In this study, researchers from Stanford University create an algorithm to protect OR teams who perform urgent and emergency surgical procedures from the coronavirus and rationally conserve the personal protective equipment (PPE) they wear. Incuded in the decision tree algorithm: Patients were triaged by severity of illness into…

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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 the first half of February only three cases of COVID-19 were identified in Italy, and all had recently traveled to China. On February 20, a case of pneumonia due to SARS-CoV-2 was diagnosed in northern Italy’s Lombardy region. Within 14 days, many other cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed in…

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