Coronavirus (COVID-19) Collection
Seroprevalence of infection-induced SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among health care users of Northern Italy: results from two serosurveys (October-November 2019 and September-October 2021)
COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, was declared a public health emergency of international concern on January 30, 2020. As of June 12, 2022, there have been 533,160,628 confirmed cases worldwide, including over 6 million deaths (WHO, 2022).Azithromycin use and outcomes in patients with COVID-19: an observational real-world study
COVID-19, caused by the new SARS-CoV-2, continues to be widespread, with nearly 600 million cases and >6 million deaths worldwide as of August 29, 2022 (World Health Organization, 2022). Most patients with COVID-19 have flu-like syndrome with a variety of mild symptoms including rhinitis, pharyngitis, cough, and fever. However, some patients experience a more life-threatening disease characterized by respiratory failure, a proinflammatory state, and arterial thromboembolism, which may require hospitalization and intensive care unit (ICU) admission (Bonaventura et al.COVID-19 and schools: what is the risk of contagion? Results of a rapid-antigen-test-based screening campaign in Florence, Italy
On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) as a pandemic (World Health Organization, 2020). Even before this announcement, many countries had imposed restrictions on citizens to limit spread of the virus. The main measures taken were the promotion of physical distancing; the closure of borders between different regions; the cancellation of public events; and the closure of schools, universities and other educational institutions.Comparative diagnostic performance of rapid antigen detection tests for COVID-19 in a hospital setting
The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been associated with a significant burden and unprecedented pressure on healthcare systems (McArthur et al., 2020; Greene et al., 2020; Rahimi and Talebi Bezmin Abadi, 2020). The availability of accurate and rapid diagnostic tools for COVID-19 is therefore essential for both active monitoring of cases and contact tracing strategies in order to reduce the circulation of the COVID-19 causative agent (Greene et al., 2020; Rahimi and Talebi Bezmin Abadi, 2020; Venter and Richter, 2020; Hu et al., 2021).Use of the FebriDx point-of-care test for the exclusion of SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis in a population with acute respiratory infection during the second (COVID-19) wave in Italy
SARS-CoV-2 infection is widespread around the world and is causing an overwhelming rate of contagion, hospital admissions and death. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses a great challenge to infection prevention efforts in a hospital setting. A prompt diagnosis properly allocates the patient in a dedicated area, reducing the risk of nosocomial transmission. The gold standard for the diagnosis is detection of viral RNA by nucleic acid amplification technologies (NAATs) (usually a real time polymerase chain reaction (rt-PCR) performed on a suitable respiratory sample: nasopharyngeal (NP) swab, sputum, bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL)) (ECDC, 2020).Infection sustained by lineage B.1.1.7 of SARS-CoV-2 is characterised by longer persistence and higher viral RNA loads in nasopharyngeal swabs
Starting from March 2020, nasopharyngeal swabs collected in three provinces (Chieti, L’Aquila and Teramo) of Abruzzo, a central Region of Italy, were tested daily for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA at the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell’Abruzzo e del Molise “G. Caporale” (IZSAM) (Danzetta et al., 2020).Risk factors for non-invasive/invasive ventilatory support in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia: A retrospective study within a multidisciplinary approach
In December 2019, a novel coronavirus disease appeared in Wuhan (China) and spread rapidly worldwide, leading to a pandemic scenario (Zhu et al., 2020). The infection caused by the novel coronavirus was named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and this coronavirus was named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by the World Health Organization (WHO) (Anon, 2020a).Timing of national lockdown and mortality in COVID-19: The Italian experience
On February 20, 2020, a 30-year-old patient admitted to the intensive care unit in Codogno Hospital (Lombardy, Italy) tested positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel beta-coronavirus that causes Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). During the next 24 h, the number of reported positive cases increased to 36 (Sebastiani et al., 2020; Grasselli et al., 2020).COVID-19 in Italy: Considerations on official data
COVID-19 represents a significant public health issue. Mar 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic (World Health Organization (WHO), 2020). This virus can easily spread (Wang et al., 2020; Li et al., 2020) and can lead to asymptomatic cases (Tian et al., 2020; Mizumoto et al., 2020), mild syndromes (Guan et al., 2020; Wu and McGoogan, 2020) as well as severe manifestations, requiring hospitalization and Intensive Care Units (ICU) (Wu and McGoogan, 2020).Preliminary estimates of the reproduction number of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Republic of Korea and Italy by 5 March 2020
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has caused 6088 cases and 41 deaths in Republic of Korea, and 3144 cases and 107 death in Italy by 5 March 2020, respectively. We modelled the transmission process in the Republic of Korea and Italy with a stochastic model, and estimated the basic reproduction number R0 as 2.6 (95% CI: 2.3–2.9) or 3.2 (95% CI: 2.9–3.5) in the Republic of Korea, under the assumption that the exponential growth starting on 31 January or 5 February 2020, and 2.6 (95% CI: 2.3–2.9) or 3.3 (95% CI: 3.0–3.6) in Italy, under the assumption that the exponential growth starting on 5 February or 10 February 2020, respectively.
