During the last months and following the implementation of containment measures in the context of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the number of new human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) diagnoses radically decreased in Liege AIDS Reference Center, Belgium. The number of HIV screening tests has also dramatically dropped down to an unprecedented level. This decline of HIV diagnosis is caused by missed diagnoses of individuals infected before the establishment of such measures and to the reduction of high-risk sexual behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new coronavirus infection, which was first seen in China in late December, 2019 and eventually became a worldwide pandemic, poses a serious threat to public health. After a high spike in the number of new COVID-19 infection cases following the increase in overall daily death toll in Turkey, Turkish Ministry of Health has taken immediate precautions to postpone elective surgeries in order to reduce the burden to the healthcare system which might be challenged. Whereas different areas of medicine were able to suspend their operative procedures during this period, this was not completely possible in paediatric cardiovascular surgery due to the severity and urgency of congenital heart disease patients requiring operation. Based on the guideline that was published by the Turkish Paediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery Association, in which the patients requiring surgical intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic period are ranked according to the priority, directions were given regarding the operations that hereby, be delayed, we report our experience in 29 cases retrospectively, regarding the pre-operative evaluation of these patients, makings of an emergency operation decision, and strategies taken about intra-operative and post-operative management and arrangements during the pandemic period. In this article, we present crucial precautions that were applied in paediatric cardiovascular surgery and extensive list of cases in order to deliver highest level of the patient safety and protection for the surgical team.

During our routine work, we noticed an increased incidence of COVID-19 diagnoses among patients in the cardiac unit, which led to an exponential increase in COVID-19 cases among hospital staff. We found that patients hid their symptoms from the emergency doctors and attributed those symptoms to cardiac or other causes. Social stigmatisation appeared to be the root cause for hiding their symptoms. Hence, we recommended a strategy to introduce psychological counselling of patients who were suspected to be infected with COVID-19, with a normal cardiac workup to overcome social stigmatisation and save our general wards from COVID-19.

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is of global concern and has recently emerged in the US. In this paper, we construct a stochastic variant of the SEIR model to estimate a quasi-worst-case scenario prediction of the COVID-19 outbreak in the US West and East Coast population regions by considering the different phases of response implemented by the US as well as transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in countries that were most affected. The model is then fitted to current data and implemented using Runge-Kutta methods. Our computation results predict that the number of new cases would peak around mid-April 2020 and begin to abate by July provided that appropriate COVID-19 measures are promptly implemented and followed, and that the number of cases of COVID-19 might be significantly mitigated by having greater numbers of functional testing kits available for screening. The model is also sensitive to assigned parameter values and reflects the importance of healthcare preparedness during pandemics.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has brought the Italian National Health System to its knees. The abnormally high influx of patients, together with the limited resources available, has forced clinicians to make unprecedented decisions and provide compassionate treatments for which little or no evidence is yet available. This is the case for the use of noninvasive positive pressure ventilation and continuous airway pressure ventilation, combined with prone position in patients with COVID-19 and acute respiratory distress syndrome treated outside of intensive care units. In our article, we comment on the evidence available, so far, and provide a brief summary of data collected at our health institution in Piedmont, Italy.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an essential treatment for severe mental illnesses such as depression with suicidality and catatonia. However, its availability is being threatened by resource limitations and infection concerns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This may necessitate the triage of patients for ECT but there is no established ethical framework to prioritise patients. We offer an application of an ethical framework for use of scare medical resources in the ECT setting.

The declaration of a COVID-19 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome – CoronaVirus2) pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020 has vastly changed the landscape in which mental health services function. Consideration is required to adapt services during this unusual time, ensuring continued provision of care for current patients, availability of care for patients with new-onset mental health difficulties and delivery of evidence-based support for healthcare professionals working with affected patients. Lessons can be learned from research carried out during the severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome and Ebola epidemics to ensure the delivery of efficient and effective mental health services both now and into the future.

The COVID-19 Pandemic a stress test for clinical medicine and medical ethics, with a confluence over questions of the proportionality of resuscitation. Drawing upon his experience as a clinical ethicist during the surge in New York City during the Spring of 2020, the author considers how attitudes regarding resuscitation have evolved since the inception of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders decades ago. Sharing a personal narrative about a DNR quandry he encountered as a medical intern, the author considers the balance of patient rights versus clinical discretion, warning about the risk of resurgent physician paternalism dressed up in the guise of a public health crisis.

Purpose: The novel coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)) first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and rapidly spread across the globe. Since most respiratory viruses are known to show a seasonal pattern of infection, it has been hypothesised that SARS-CoV-2 may be seasonally dependent as well. The present study looks at a possible effect of atmospheric temperature, which is one of the suspected factors influencing seasonality, on the evolution of the pandemic. Basic procedures: Since confirming a seasonal pattern would take several more months of observation, we conducted an innovative day-to-day micro-correlation analysis of nine outbreak locations, across four continents and both hemispheres, in order to examine a possible relationship between atmospheric temperature (used as a proxy for seasonality) and outbreak progression. Main findings: There was a negative correlation between atmospheric temperature variations and daily new cases growth rates, in all nine outbreaks, with a median lag of 10 days. Principal conclusions: The results presented here suggest that high temperatures might dampen SARS-CoV-2 propagation, while lower temperatures might increase its transmission. Our hypothesis is that this could support a potential effect of atmospheric temperature on coronavirus disease progression, and potentially a seasonal pattern for this virus, with a peak in the cold season and rarer occurrences in the summer. This could guide government policy in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres for the months to come.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may cause psychological distress in the general population and has the potential to cause anxiety regarding COVID-19. No validated questionnaires exist for the measurement of specific COVID-19 anxiety. We modified the DSM 5 – Severity Measure for Specific Phobia–Adult scale specifically for anxiety regarding COVID-19, and report the psychometric properties from an online study with 6262 participants from the general population in Germany. We analysed internal consistency as well as concordant validity. The scale showed good internal consistency (α = 0.86) and good concordant validity (rs = 0.60) with the 2-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder measure and rs = 0.61 with self-rating of limitations in daily life caused by COVID-19 anxiety.

The UK, and England in particular, has suffered egregiously poor outcomes in managing the Covid-19 pandemic. This short perspective points to the explanation in terms of both current British politics and the public health policy inheritance. Boris Johnson's Premiership was born in an opportunistic assertion of British exceptionalism, and Johnson's initial, fate-tempting reaction to the novel Coronavirus set the UK on the wrong path. Furthermore, the gradual erosion of professionalism in (especially health) policy-making over almost four decades, and the hollowing-out of the health protection infrastructure, both facilitated and accentuated a toxic approach to managing Covid-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on clinical practice. Safe standards of practice are essential to protect health care workers while still allowing them to provide good care. The Canadian Society of Clinical Neurophysiologists, the Canadian Association of Electroneurophysiology Technologists, the Association of Electromyography Technologists of Canada, the Board of Registration of Electromyography Technologists of Canada, and the Canadian Board of Registration of Electroencephalograph Technologists have combined to review current published literature about safe practices for neurophysiology laboratories. Herein, we present the results of our review and provide our expert opinion regarding the safe practice of neurophysiology during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.

The medium- to long-term consequences of COVID-19 are not yet known, though an increase in mental health problems are predicted. Multidisciplinary strategies across socio-economic and psychological levels may be needed to mitigate the mental health burden of COVID-19. Preliminary evidence from the rapidly progressing field of psychedelic science shows that psilocybin therapy offers a promising transdiagnostic treatment strategy for a range of disorders with restricted and maladaptive habitual patterns of cognition and behaviour, notably depression, addiction and obsessive compulsive disorder. The COMPASS Pathways (COMPASS) phase 2b double-blind trial of psilocybin therapy in antidepressant-free, treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is underway to determine the safety, efficacy and optimal dose of psilocybin. Results from the Imperial College London Psilodep-RCT comparing the efficacy and mechanisms of action of psilocybin therapy to the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) escitalopram will soon be published. However, the efficacy and safety of psilocybin therapy in conjunction with SSRIs in TRD is not yet known. An additional COMPASS study, with a centre in Dublin, will begin to address this question, with potential implications for the future delivery of psilocybin therapy. While at a relatively early stage of clinical development, and notwithstanding the immense challenges of COVID-19, psilocybin therapy has the potential to play an important therapeutic role for various psychiatric disorders in post-COVID-19 clinical psychiatry.

Different countries have adopted strategies for the early detection of SARS-CoV-2 since the declaration of community transmission by the World Health Organization (WHO) and timely diagnosis has been considered one of the major obstacles for surveillance and healthcare. Here, we report the increase of the number of laboratories to COVID-19 diagnosis in Brazil. Our results demonstrate an increase and decentralisation of certified laboratories, which does not match the much higher increase in the number of COVID-19 cases. Also, it becomes clear that laboratories are irregularly distributed over the country, with a concentration in the most developed state, São Paulo.

Infectious disease outbreaks have occurred sporadically over the centuries. The most significant ones of this century, as reported by the World Health Organization, include the EVD epidemic, SARS pandemic, Swine Flu pandemic and MERS pandemic. The long-term mental health consequences of outbreaks are as profound as physical ones and can last for years post-outbreak. This highlights the need for enhancing the preparedness of pragmatic mental health service provision. Due to its magnitude, the novel COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be the most impactful. Compared with previous outbreaks, COVID-19 has also occurred at higher rates in frontline staff in addition to patients. As COVID-19 is more contagious than earlier outbreaks, there is a need to identify infected people quickly and isolate them and their contacts. This is the current context in which mental health services including IAPT have had to operate. Evidently, Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services are a major mental health service provider in the UK that have demonstrated variability in their response to COVID-19. While some IAPT services quickly adapted their existing strengths and resources (e.g. remote working), other services were less prepared. To date, there are no clear unitary guidelines on how IAPT services can use their pre-existing resources to respond to the long-term effects of outbreaks. In light of this, the current paper aims to reflect on the lessons learned from past outbreaks in order to consider how an enhanced remit of IAPT might integrate with other services to meet the long-term needs of patients and staff affected by COVID-19.

In this article, we explore whether women's underrepresentation among political and workplace decision makers may subject female citizens and employees to COVID-19-related decisions that are at odds with their preferences. We find that women overall, as well as female political party members, workers, and workplace leaders in particular, share a distinctively female perspective that more heavily emphasizes caution with respect to COVID-19 compared with men. Given the limited representation of women leaders across most industries and in politics, COVID-19 regulations are thus likely to be less cautious than would be the case if there were an equitable representation of women across leadership roles. We argue that female employees, in particular, face a representational “double whammy” for COVID-19: gender imbalances in workplace leadership create inequities that are compounded—rather than redressed—by unequal political representation. We conclude by addressing how this dynamic may enhance the movement of women away from Republican candidates moving forward.