Objective Since the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Singapore in January 2020, our maternity centre at Singapore General Hospital has devised and implemented contingency protocols to manage COVID-19 suspected or infected pregnant mothers. These aimed to deliver effective care while ensuring the safety of our front-line healthcare workers. Methods The epidemiology and pathogenicity of SARS-COV-2 was compared to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak in 2003. Our protocols were constructed following multidisciplinary discussions. These workflow processes include triage, isolation, determination of admission criteria and subsequent secured transfers to dedicated isolation wards. Intrapartum management policies including mode of delivery were reviewed with the focus on minimising maternal-fetal transmission. Postpartum care (breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact) policies were re-evaluated. Results The Centre conducted several multidisciplinary in-situ simulations which identified potential latent threats and deficiencies in infection containment. These were gaps in communication and co-ordination between operating theatre, obstetrics and neonatal teams resulting in delayed transfers. A particular vulnerability was the consistent breaches observed in the donning and doffing of personal protective equipment. This led to a need for additional personnel to guide and police strict adherence among healthcare workers. Conclusion Operational readiness leverage on robust contingency protocols which must be subjected to simulation and scrutiny with subsequent revision. We recommend deploying additional supervisory manpower to maintain strict adherence to infection prevention protocols. Effective preparation is key in maintaining high clinical standards of obstetric care while ensuring safety of healthcare workers during this ongoing pandemic. Funding No funding nor conflicts of interest.

Older adults over 60 are at a higher risk of getting severely sick and dying from COVID–19. Sri Lanka has one of the fastest aging populations in South and South–East Asia. In addition to having a rapidly aging population, Sri Lanka is a developing country with limited resources to accommodate the older population that can be significantly affected by COVID–19. Statistics up to date shows that older adults are at a much higher risk of dying from COVID–19. Older adults being at a much higher risk of contracting and dying from COVID–19 has important implications for the way in which public health and clinical responses should be developed. These implications have been largely overlooked in both high and low and middle–income countries when providing guidance and implementing regulations, which can have a greater impact in low and middle–income countries. Preparedness of the healthcare systems to respond to the pandemic with a lack of facilities, resources (i.e., ventilators) and staff in the healthcare system, specifically in hospitals, intensive care units and long–term care homes is a concern that should be taken into consideration when clinical responses are developed. Challenges around protecting community–dwelling older adults who are caregivers to grandchildren, receiving informal care from children in the same household, living in living in remote areas, or living alone or dependent on others need to be taken into consideration when developing public health responses.

The study analyzes the Italian Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCov) outbreaks, searching possible predicting model, underlining the risk of the Trend of phenomena.

Since news of COVID-19 outbreak hit the mainstream media, I have received several calls from acquaintances about if and how they should be worried. I suspect many readers of the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice have experienced the same. What makes communicating the risk difficult can be illustrated through a recent assignment I gave to my undergraduate class focused on how we use science in public policy. I asked the students to identify claims in the media regarding the virus and then search the literature to assess the level of support for such claims. Suffice it to say, they found several claims unsupported, and several others to be inconclusive. Not very good grounding for providing definitive (or even satisfying) advice.

In this letter, two time delay dynamic models, TDD-NCP model and Fudan-CCDC model, are introduced to track the data of COVID-19. The TDD-NCP model is developed recently by Cheng's group group in Fudan and SUFE. The TDD-NCP model introduced the time delay process into the differential equations to describe the latent period of the epidemic. The Fudan-CDCC model is established when Wenbin Chen suggested to determine the kernel functions in the TDD-NCP model by the public data from CDCC. By the public data of the cumulative confirmed cases in different regions in China and different countries, these models can clearly illustrate that the containment of the epidemic highly depends on early and effective isolations.

I compared the predicted and observed flexible conformations of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 (2019-nCoV) spike proteins by using supersecondary structure codes (SSSCs) and a comparison program of three deep-neural-network-based prediction systems (SSSCPred200, SSSCPred100, and SSSCPred). The SARS-CoV SSSC sequences predicted by the three deep-neural-network-based systems well reproduced those of the Protein Data Bank (PDB) data, including the structured loops. Only one common identical motif (SSSC: SSSHSSHHHH) among all of the compared SSSC sequences, including predicted and observed ones, was found at the S2 position. This motif has an extremely rare rigid conformation. The antibody or ligand binding to the spike protein S2 of SARS-CoV near the rigid motif may also have a more accessible effect on SARS-CoV-2 than those binding to the receptor-binding motif of SARS-CoV have.

We're in a crisis  We are in the midst of an unprecedented global crisis. Just weeks since its outbreak, the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has already affected, and will continue to affect, our daily lives, around the globe, for the foreseeable future. The answers and the solutions to this crisis will come from science. But the crisis affects science, too.It affects students, educators, and researchers; not just their day-to-day lives, social ties, and work routines, but also their ability to actively collaborate, convene in face-to-face meetings, attend academic conferences, teach and learn in an open university setting, pay a visit to the library, work overnight at the laboratory, and so on.But the thing is: science cannot stop. Scientific progress must go on. For each one of the challenges that scientists face in this time of crisis, there is, or there will be, a solution. We believe that the solution is not to be found in a single technological tool, product, framework, institution, funding agency, or company. It is the global cyber-infrastructure of scientific collaboration, built on scientific rigor, intellectual curiosity, and cooperation, that will enable science to advance in such difficult times. The power of scientific collaborationAs scientists, publishers, science communicators and technologists, we believe that: a. Science is the solution to the ongoing crisis. Now more than ever, reliance on the scientific method, rigor and clarity of scientific communication, transparency, reproducibility, and seamless sharing of all research data (including negative results), are fundamental to solving this health crisis and advancing human progress.b. Global collaboration and cooperation, beyond and above national and economic interests, is necessary not only at the scientific level, but also at the political and societal level. We're more interconnected and interdependent today than ever. And such interconnectedness extends to the ecological ecosystem in which we live. A crisis of such scale requires global solidarity, bipartisan political action, civic participation, and long-term thinking.

Abstract Background and Purpose: The 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has been spread out since December 2019 from China to 29 countries. No effective treatment is currently available, although the combination regimen of the antiretroviral drugs– lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r), with other antiviral drugs have been using, but the evidences are limited. A recent in vitro study showed that chloroquine could inhibit COVID-19 to cells, and enhance antiviral efficacy. This study aimed to predict the optimal dose regimens of LPV/r, and chloroquine in combination as a potential treatment of COVID-19 infection, using the physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modelling. Experimental approach: The whole PBPK models were constructed. The predicted plasma drug concentrations were compared with the published clinical data. The validated models were used to predict optimal dosage regimens of LPV/r, and chloroquine co-administration. The optimal dose regimen was determined based on the efficacy, and toxicity reported in the published data. Key Results: The average errors of the predicted values were within 30% of the observed data. The proposed optimal dosage regimen is the once-daily dose of 800/200 mg LPV/r co-administered with chloroquine at a loading dose of 1,000 mg, followed by twice-daily dose of 500 mg for 8 doses on the second day, and the twice-daily dose of 400 mg for 18 doses. Conclusion and Implications: PBPK modelling successfully predicted pharmacokinetic profiles within an acceptable range of errors. The study provides a focus for clinical studies to confirm the efficacy of the proposed dosage regimen as a novel treatment for COVID-19 infection.

There is not any medicine during the emergency of 2019-nCov has been an outbreak and we have already found antiviral phytomedicine Chinese elderberry will be inhibition of 2019-nCoV.This commentary used to be presented in June of 2013 at the first international symposium for the elderberry, the conference, held in the USA, many scientists were surprised to learn of the 9 native species of elderberry in China. This paper aims to publish our comment on the elderberry, as, since our initial presentation in 2013, no English literature references are present in China. Most Chinese horticulturists and farmers consider the elderberry a wild plant. It is regarded as a plant of little value due to its abundance and ease of harvest. This article contains details of the Sambucus species groups, including the botanical names, Chinese common names, geographic distributions, economic uses and full descriptions of the elderberry. In southwest China, where the climate is mildly warm, there are 2 species of elderberries; one, Sambucus adnata, is termed the “blood-red herb-elderberry” by local residents as the roots, rhizomes, and branches exude red-juice when broken. The second, named S. javanica or S. chinensis, is commonly called the “herb-elderberry”. In northeast China where the climate is cold, there are 7 species of elderberry, however, most scientists recognize only 2 main species: Sambucus. williamsii, commonly called the “woody-elderberry”, and Sambucus sibirica, commonly called the “Siberian woody-elderberry”. The other 5 species of elderberry in northern-east of China.