Early and accurate diagnosis of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is key to the management of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Following its emergence in China in December, 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has spread in the northern hemisphere during the winter season, when other respiratory viruses, including influenza, co-circulate. This epidemiological conjunction complicates clinical diagnosis of COVID-19 because patients often present with influe...

BACKGROUND
Remdesivir, a nucleotide analogue prodrug that inhibits viral RNA polymerases, has shown in vitro activity against SARS-CoV-2.



METHODS
We provided remdesivir on a compassionate-use basis to patients hospitalized with Covid-19, the illness caused by infection with SARS-CoV-2. Patients were those with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection who had an oxygen saturation of 94% or less while they were breathing ambient air or who were receiving oxygen support. Patients rece...

Aerosols and droplets generated during speech have been implicated in the person-to-person transmission of viruses, and there is current interest in understanding the mechanisms responsible for the spread of Covid-19 by these means. The act of speaking generates oral fluid droplets that vary widely in size, and these droplets can harbor infectious virus particles. Whereas large droplets fall quickly to the ground, small droplets can dehydrate and linger as “droplet nuclei” in the air, ...

A text message from a colleague in mainland China flashed across the screen of one of our cell phones on New Year’s Eve, 2019, notifying us of an emerging cluster of cases of atypical pneumonia in Wuhan. Amid flashbacks to the fearsome severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2002–2003, we immediately reached out to our network of collaborators for further leads. An uncomfortable silence followed over the next few weeks.




By mid-January, we noticed the first ...

Several research lines are currently ongoing to address the multitude of facets of the pandemic COVID-19. In line with the One-Health concept, extending the target of the studies to the animals which humans are continuously interacting with may favor a better understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 biology and pathogenetic mechanisms; thus, helping to adopt the most suitable containment measures. The last two decades have already faced severe manifestations of the coronavirus infection in both humans...

Objectives:

To improve the infection control and prevention practices against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in radiology department through loophole identification and providing rectifying measurements.

Methods:

Retrospective analysis of 2 cases of health-care-associated COVID-19 transmission in 2 radiology departments and comparing the infection control and prevention practices against COVID-19 with the practices of our department, where no COVID-19 transmissio...

Abstract
To determine distribution of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in hospital wards in Wuhan, China, we tested air and surface samples. Contamination was greater in intensive care units than general wards. Virus was widely distributed on floors, computer mice, trash cans, and sickbed handrails and was detected in air ≈4 m from patients.






As of March 30, 2020, approximately 750,000 cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had been reported g...

A new coronavirus (CoV) identified as COVID-19 virus is the etiological agent responsible for the 2019-2020 viral pneumonia outbreak that commenced in Wuhan1–4. Currently there are no targeted therapeutics and effective treatment options remain very limited. In order to rapidly discover lead compounds for clinical use, we initiated a program of combined structure-assisted drug design, virtual drug screening and high-throughput screening to identify new drug leads that target the COVID-19 viru...

Michael J. Loeffelholza and Yi-Wei Tangb published in Emerging Microbes & Infections a state of the art of the current laboratory methods available for testing coronaviruses. For the study, the authors focused on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak going on in Wuhan. 
Viral pneumonias typically do not result in the production of purulent sputum. Thus, a nasopharyngeal swab is usually the collection method used to obtain a specimen for testing. N...

AbstractAs the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spreads, new data emerge and understanding of the disease improves. Reports associated with children are growing but still scarce. The epicenter of the epidemic has displaced to Europe. The first case in Spain was declared on January 31, 2020, and the first case in the Madrid region was declared on February 27, 2020.
MethodsWith the aim of obtaining an overview of the proportion of confirmed cases among those tested and the sev...

The Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases  and the Department of Epidemiology of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health write this article projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through the post-pandemic period.
Abstract

There is an urgent need to project how transmission of the novel betacoronavirus SARS-CoV-2 will unfold in coming years. These dynamics will depend on seasonality, the duration of immunity, and the strength of cross-immunity to/fr...

AbstractA novel coronavirus (COVID-19 virus) outbreak has caused a global pandemic resulting in tens of thousands of infections and thousands of deaths worldwide. The RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp, also named nsp12) is the central component of coronaviral replication/transcription machinery and appears to be a primary target for the antiviral drug, remdesivir. We report the cryo-EM structure of COVID-19 virus full-length nsp12 in complex with cofactors nsp7 and nsp8 at 2.9-Å resolution. ...