BREAKING DOWN COVID-19 – A Living Textbook. Publication of First Medicine and Global Clinical Partners by Carey Kriz

The COVID-19 Living Textbook is prepared by 55 experts (medical doctors, social scientists, and medical students, who are experts in their field and many of them have been working on the frontline of the COVID-19 response).

It is aimed at a wide range of audiences, including clinicians, public health specialists, social scientists, and the general public.

The world is amidst a pandemic that is presenting one of the greatest public health challenges of the twenty-frst century. A new coronavirus has jumped the interspecies barrier, and it possesses the capability of effcient person-to-person transmission and selectively kills older people and those with underlying chronic conditions. Since its emergence the new coronavirus has resulted in 43.7 million infections and over 1 million deaths as of October 25, 2020—20% of deaths are in the United States followed by Brazil (14%), India (10%), Mexico (7.8%), and the United Kingdom (4%). The new disease emerged in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and the early cases appeared to be associated with a local wholesale fsh and live animal market.

The cluster of patients exhibited respiratory features of pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome as seen in the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
coronavirus of 2002–2003, leading the scientists to suspect a virus of zoonotic origins. On December 31, the Chinese authorities informed the World Health
Organization (WHO) of the outbreak, putting the organization on emergency footing.3 The WHO issued comprehensive technical guidance online with advise to all
countries on how to detect, test, and manage emerging infections based on previous experience with SARS and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak of 2012.4 In mid-January, Chinese authorities announced a novel coronavirus with genetic structure similar to SARS (80%), and with its origins in bats, it was the cause of the new disease.5 The virus was offcially named the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease it caused the
Coronavirus Disease 2019, or COVID-19 ..

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