Coronavirus (COVID-19)
This page contains medical information for clinicians on the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19, also called 2019-nCoV, and now clinically SARS‐CoV‐2). This section includes articles that pertain to clinicians and cardiologists on the virus, new technologies being deployed to fight the virus and clinical information from various sources. Here are direct links for medical professionals to COVID-19 resources from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Daily world-wide statistics on the coronavirus outbreak are available from the WHO Situations Reports. Here is the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) frequently asked questions and answers (FAQs) for healthcare providers regarding Medicare payment for laboratory tests and other services related to the COVID-19.

The Mesuron Inc. Avalon-H90 uses magnetometers to detect myocarditis in patients without any physical contact. It uses ventricular repolarization dynamics analysis software to look for abnormalities. The vendor said it is more specific than using ECG. It detects the multidimensional dynamics of the electrical activity caused by differences in functions of electrical action potential of normal heart tissues and abnormal ones with hypoxia.

SARS-CoV-2 infection of cells shown in green, left. This is inhibited by a modified form of cholesterol called 25-hydroxycholesterol (25HC), as seen in the cells in the right image. 25HC activates an enzyme called ACAT, found inside cells in the endoplasmic reticulum. ACAT then depletes accessible cholesterol on the cell’s membrane. It is a normally occurring process that gets kicked into high gear during some viral infections. Image from UC San Diego Health Sciences.

Naples Community Hospital Director of Cardiac Imaging Bill Shirkey showing a point-of-care echocardiogram of a COVID-19 patient he imaged with a GE Healthcare Vscan device bedside in an isolation room. Use of a small handheld device greatly speeds disinfection after the exam and does not require moving a larger cart-based ultrasound system into a room, which may require moving furniture and add exposure time in the room.

Exantham on abdomen and back of a pediatric patient at Nemours Children’s Health System in Delaware who presented with mysterious symptoms in what would later be identified as one of the first cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) in the United States. Find more images