Articles: coronavirus.
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Homeless individuals face many barriers to accessing healthcare, and EDs are often their primary entry point to the healthcare system. The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to exacerbate existing social inequities and health disparities, including barriers to accessing social services and healthcare. Addressing the complex social and chronic health issues associated with homelessness can be challenging within the acute care environment. This perspective reflects upon the delivery of emergency healthcare to patients experiencing homelessness, and highlights strategies for optimising health outcomes during and beyond the pandemic.
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BackgroundEvidence for face-mask wearing in the community to protect against respiratory disease is unclear. AimTo assess effectiveness of wearing face masks in the community to prevent respiratory disease, and recommend improvements to this evidence base. MethodsWe systematically searched Scopus, Embase and MEDLINE for studies evaluating respiratory disease incidence after face-mask wearing (or not). ⋯ ConclusionWearing face masks may reduce primary respiratory infection risk, probably by 6-15%. It is important to balance evidence from RCTs and observational studies when their conclusions widely differ and both are at risk of significant bias. COVID-19-specific studies are required.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Dec 2020
Grief Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Multiple Group Comparisons.
Grief researchers are concerned that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic will precipitate increases in severe, persistent, and disabling grief, termed prolonged grief disorder or persistent complex bereavement disorder. We recently demonstrated that higher grief levels are experienced after COVID-19-related bereavement than natural bereavement. Death circumstances during the pandemic (e.g., reduced social support, limited opportunities for death rituals) may also hamper the grief process for non-COVID-19-related bereavement, yet no quantitative research has specifically addressed this issue. ⋯ Among all bereaved persons, grief severity was no different during the pandemic compared with before the pandemic. However, experiencing a recent loss during the pandemic elicited more severe acute grief reactions than before the pandemic, suggesting that dealing with loss may be more difficult during this ongoing health crisis.
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Novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, designated as COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the February 11, 2020, is one of the highly pathogenic β-coronaviruses which infects human. Early diagnosis of COVID-19 is the most critical step to treat infection. The diagnostic tools are generally molecular methods, serology and viral culture. ⋯ In severe hypoxaemia, a combination of antibiotics, α-interferon, lopinavir and mechanical ventilation can effectively mitigate the symptoms. Comprehensive knowledge on the innate and adaptive immune responses, will make it possible to propose potent antiviral drugs with their effective therapeutic measures for the prevention of viral infection. This therapeutic strategy will help patients worldwide to protect themselves against severe and fatal viral infections, that potentially can evolve and develop drug resistance, and to reduce mortality rates.