Coronavirus (COVID-19) Collection
High-flow oxygen therapy in elderly patients infected with SARS-CoV2 with a contraindication for transfer to an intensive care unit: A preliminary report
COVID-19 has emerged as a world pandemic that has caused more than 2.7 million deaths and has infected 124 million people worldwide (Johns Hopkins University, 2021). Severe infections occur in patients over 65 years of age who are suffering from comorbidities and most deaths have occurred in patients over 80 years of age (Lagier et al., 2020). The most common complication is severe pneumonia with acute respiratory distress syndrome requiring admission to intensive care units, which have limited availability in a pandemic context.Emergence and outcomes of the SARS-CoV-2 ‘Marseille-4’ variant
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) epidemic that started in Wuhan, China in December 2019 has spread rapidly around the world ( https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html ). At the Méditerranée Infection Institute (IHU) in Marseille, routine diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 by PCR was set up in January 2020 (Lagier et al., 2020; Colson et al., 2020a). The first SARS-CoV-2-infected patient was diagnosed at the IHU on February 27, 2020 (Colson et al., 2020c) ( https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/covid-19/ ).Screening of SARS-CoV-2 among homeless people, asylum-seekers and other people living in precarious conditions in Marseille, France, March–April 2020
Since March 2020, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has spread to more than 200 countries and territories worldwide (Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 2020). Homeless people are a vulnerable group who may potentially be exposed to this infection and potentially have severer outcomes than the general population because of their poor living conditions, higher prevalence of comorbidities, and mental and physical conditions impaired by substance or alcohol abuse (Kar et al., 2020; Kirby, 2020; Lima et al., 2020; Neto et al., 2020; Tsai and Wilson, 2020) Crowded conditions in shelters without specific preventive measures could facilitate viral transmission (Peate, 2020; Wood et al., 2020).Asymptomatic hypoxia in COVID-19 is associated with poor outcome
Recently, a new coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in China at the end of December 2019 and rapidly spread throughout the world, producing millions of victims and several hundred thousand deaths (Huang et al., 2020). The early descriptive reports of the clinical presentation of the disease resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection, named coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), revealed that one third of patients did not have dyspnea (Zhou et al., 2020).How useful is serology for COVID-19?
A paper in this journal reported on the different seroepidemiological studies carried out around the world for SARS-CoV-2 (Lai et al., 2020). This study helps to put into perspective the potential interest of serology in SARS-CoV-2 infection. The first question was, according to serological techniques, is it possible to identify positive serologies in patients sampled in 2019, before the epidemic? The answer is yes (Lagier et al., 2020). Depending on the different serological techniques used, cross-reactions may be observed, particularly in children, which could explain why SARS-CoV-2 is, to date, the only respiratory viral disease that does not affect children (Colson et al., 2020; Maltezou et al., 2020).Different pattern of the second outbreak of COVID-19 in Marseille, France
Since its emergence in China at the end of 2019, SARS-CoV-2 spread worldwide with more than 29 million cases of COVID-19 reported, as of 15 September 2020. Currently, most cases have been reported from the US, India, Brazil and Russia ( https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 ). In Europe, since the beginning of the pandemic, the EU/EEA and the UK have reported 1,733,550 COVID-19 cases and 182,639 deaths, as of 2 August 2020 (10% of all cases reported worldwide).Temporal and age distributions of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses, southeastern France
The SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, which apparently started in December 2019 in China (Wu and McGoogan, 2020), currently presents a poorly understood epidemiological cycle. In China, Korea, and now in Europe, it seems to have had a bell-shaped distribution ( https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases ; https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/covid-19/ ) as is typical for viral respiratory infections. Furthermore, we and others have shown that detection of SARS-CoV-2 in children is rare, as are clinical cases (Colson et al., 2020; Gudbjartsson et al., 2020; Jones et al., 2020; Li et al., 2020; Wu and McGoogan, 2020).Clusters of COVID-19 associated with Purim celebration in the Jewish community in Marseille, France, March 2020
Worldwide spread of COVID-19, which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020, has prompted many governments to implement control measures to regulate viral spread with the aim to protect the health and safety of their people. COVID-19 is a communicable disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 and transmitted through respiratory droplets, and it has already been shown that gatherings of people favor its spread. In the current pandemic, mass gatherings present a major public health challenge related to the protection of the health of attendees (Ebrahim and Memish, 2020; Gautret and Steffen, 2016; Hoang and Gautret, 2018; Mat et al., 2020; Memish et al., 2014).Comparison of mortality associated with respiratory viral infections between December 2019 and March 2020 with that of the previous year in Southeastern France
Respiratory viruses are a major cause of mortality worldwide, with an estimated 2.7 million deaths in 2015 (GBD 2015 LRI Collaborators, 2017). In France, they cause several thousands of deaths every year during the colder months (Pivette et al., 2020). Since January 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has generated much fear and countermeasures to stem the spread of this respiratory virus. This has largely been fueled by the tremendously extensive reporting of Covid-19-associated deaths. As of 31 March 2020, 770,520 people have been found infected worldwide, of whom 36,942 (4.8%) died.
