COVID-19: Summer 2020 Report

COVID-19: Summer 2020 Report 

Health Committee Report

The first version of this Report was issued on March 25, 2020. The Lincei Health Committee (Commissione Salute) plans to update and upload this report as new data significantly change our perception of the disease

1. Introduction.

This past winter, Italy and the entire world were severely hit by the spread of SARS-Cov-2 infection. In the face of this unexpected pandemic, which is putting many aspects of human civilization in great difficulty, the Commissione Salute of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei felt that it was its social responsibility to provide the society at large with an updated summary of the current knowledge on the features of this infection and treatments available to tackle this new virus.

This Report does not intend to provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art review, but rather a snapshot of this rapid evolving situation, a field undergoing rapid evolution, with a daily flood of scientific publications and non-peer reviewed reports. The preparation of a COVID-19 report in this context is therefore a risky undertaking and the drafters of this document are well aware of their limits.

With the limits of the metaphor, we have been experiencing wartime medicine and wartime scientific research. We are too often called upon to respond to the plight of patients with empirical approaches. Despite these conditions, a rigorous assessment of the data remains and increasingly becomes an absolute obligation especially at a time when the pressure of the disease seems to ease and almost disappear. Finding a balance between emergency and methodological rigor represents a major challenge [Baden and Rubin, 2020]. Hopefully, with the above mentioned cautionary remarks, this report will provide for the moment the tools to better understand and respond to the unprecedented challenge we are facing.

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Previous versions are available in the Statements by Lincei Committee page