Serological testing for SARS-CoV-2 has enormous potential to contribute to COVID-19 pandemic response efforts. However, the required performance characteristics of antibody tests will critically depend on the use case (individual-level vs. population-level).


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Given the threat of coronavirus disease 2019, or Covid-19, it is important to emphasize the use of proper precautions for infection control in health care settings. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2, is the virus that causes Covid-19.1 The routes of SARS-CoV-2 transmission include direct contact — that is, contact with the respiratory droplets and aerosols from an affected person — and indirect contact, such as contact with contaminated surfaces o...

Most people who develop COVID-19 after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection present with paucisymptomatic and non-severe disease. However, approximately 20% of patients develop severe COVID-19 requiring hospitalisation, including 5% who are admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has led to an unprecedented health crisis. Hence, it is crucial to identify individuals who are susceptible to developing severe COVID-19 and cou...

Global health care is experiencing an unprecedented surge in the number of critically ill patients who require mechanical ventilation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The requirement for relatively long periods of ventilation in those who survive means that many are considered for tracheostomy to free patients from ventilatory support and maximise scarce resources. COVID-19 provides unique challenges for tracheostomy care: health-care workers need to safely undertake tracheostomy procedures and ...

The COVID‐19 pandemic has disrupted routine hospital services globally. This study estimated the total number of adult elective operations that would be cancelled worldwide during the 12 weeks of peak disruption due to COVID‐19.

A global expert‐response study was conducted to elicit projections for the proportion of elective surgery that would be cancelled or postponed during the 12 weeks of peak disruption. A Bayesian beta‐regression model was used to estimate 12‐week cancellation rat...

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our society to evaluate our core values and ethics. In a crisis like none other, health care facilities and physicians are now facing shortages of ventilators, beds, and even basic personal protective equipment. Many physicians are already facing a profound ethical dilemma: how to allocate these resources during shortages; with some hospitals, states and countries even having to establish policies on which groups of patients to prioritize in ...

We read with interest the report by Blanco and colleagues of five people living with HIV who were admitted to a Barcelona hospital with COVID-19. We believe that caution is required before drawing conclusions on the outcome of COVID-19 in this population. 

Evidence is evolving that protease inhibitors developed for the treatment of HIV, both lopinavir and darunavir boosted by ritonavir or cobicistat, are not efficacious against severe acute respiratory syndrome cor...

Speech droplets generated by asymptomatic carriers of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are increasingly considered to be a likely mode of disease transmission. Highly sensitive laser light scattering observations have revealed that loud speech can emit thousands of oral fluid droplets per second. In a closed, stagnant air environment, they disappear from the window of view with time constants in the range of 8 to 14 min, which corresponds to droplet nuclei of&n...

The Bergamo province, which is extensively affected by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) epidemic, is a natural observatory of virus manifestations in the general population. In the past month we recorded an outbreak of Kawasaki disease; we aimed to evaluate incidence and features of patients with Kawasaki-like disease diagnosed during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic.
In the past month we found a 30-fold increased incidence of Kawasaki-like disease. Children diagnose...

Coronaviruses make use of a large envelope protein called spike (S) to engage host cell receptors and catalyze membrane fusion. Because of the vital role that these S proteins play, they represent a vulnerable target for the development of therapeutics. Here, we describe the isolation of single-domain antibodies (VHHs) from a llama immunized with prefusion-stabilized coronavirus spikes. These VHHs neutralize MERS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1 S pseudotyped viruses, respectively. Crystal structur...

Abstract
Neutralizing antibodies could be antivirals against COVID-19 pandemics. Here, we report isolation of four human-origin monoclonal antibodies from a convalescent patient, all of which display neutralization abilities. B38 and H4 block the binding between virus S-protein RBD and cellular receptor ACE2. A competition assay indicates their different epitopes on the RBD, making them a potential virus-targeting MAb-pair to avoid immune escape in future clinical applications. Moreove...

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been shown to affect different parts of the body, and ophthalmological changes have been associated with ocular external diseases such as conjunctivitis.
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive imaging technique that is useful for demonstrating subclinical retinal changes in systemic conditions such as diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease, as well as many viral infections. We used OCT to evaluate patients infected ...