A COVID-19 palliative care pandemic plan: An essential tool

OTTAWA – Palliative care physicians have created a coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) palliative care plan as an essential tool to provide care and help manage scare resources during the pandemic. The plan, which focuses on 8 critical elements — “stuff,” “staff,” “space,” “systems,” “sedation,” “separation,” “communication” and “equity” — is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical…

Covid-19 deaths in Italian hospitals are today increasing at maximum rate and significant numbers will continue to die until at least mid-April

A new report on Covid-19 data up to March 30 from Italy, prepared by an Italian expert for the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA), says that the number of daily deaths in Italian hospitals is today still accelerating at the maximum rate, and significant numbers of deaths in hospital are likely to continue until at…

How to Donate N95 Masks

“Giving a mask to a health care provider on the front line has more potential for a positive impact than wearing it around the grocery store,” says Conrad Amenta, director of policy and strategic initiatives at the California Academy of Family Physicians, which represents some 11,000 family doctors. Many of them have recently said they…

Hive Mind of Makers Rises to Meet Pandemic

It started with a fanciful email from one self-described science geek to another. “Hey, we should make a ventilator,” Dr. Chris Zahner, a University of Texas pathologist and former NASA engineer, wrote to Aisen Caro Chacin, an artist and medical device designer, after he learned about Italian hospitals struggling to treat the crush of coronavirus…