The new open access journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), the JACEP Open, is kicking things off with dual analyses of COVID-19 — both its transmission risk factors and the public health concerns such outbreaks spur.
To date, notes the article Novel Coronavirus 2019: Emergence and Implications for Emergency Care, COVID-19 has logged an approximately 3 percent fatality rate. Though in sheer bulk it has long since outpaced both of its coronavirus cousins, MERS and SARS, these illnesses brought with them a 35 percent and 15 percent fatality rate, respectively. Their fatality rates were higher and the cases of severe illness more commonplace.
“The impact of coronavirus is significant but pales in comparison to global influenza,” said Dr. Matthew Fuller, assistant professor and director of global health for the Division of Emergency Medicine, University of Utah, and lead study author. “Lessons learned from past outbreaks are instructive while risk factors for transmission of coronavirus are still being assessed.”
The paper also contends that transmission from carriers without symptoms has not yet been confirmed, although according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Some spread might be possible before people show symptoms; there have been reports of this occurring with this new coronavirus, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”
Regardless, high-risk patients are those with flu-like symptoms who have traveled to China, according to the report, or those in close contact with someone who traveled from there. The elderly have been hit the hardest. Transmission is likely via droplets expelled by cough or sneeze, though facial contact with contaminated surfaces is less likely to contribute to the spread.
The second paper, Coronavirus Disease 2019: International Public Health Considerations, took a broader tack, addressing the economic and social risks created by such outbreaks. As attention shifts from routine care to outbreak management, lives can be inadvertently put at risk and indirect costs on regions can mount.
“Misinformation can spread just like a virus, obscuring communication from the international health community to medical professionals and the public,” Dr. Christopher J. Greene, assistant professor of global health and international emergency medicine at the University of Alabama Birmingham and lead study author, said. “Everyone would like to avoid a scenario where anxiety drives public behavior change.”