COVID-19: Focusing on Epidemiologic, Virologic, and Clinical Studies

Dear Colleagues, 

We are all personally involved this very moment in history in the largest outbreak outside China of COVID-19; as such, I am positive that the more data we can gather and the more we know about this new clinical entity, the better equipped the scientific and medical community will be to fight back.

Thus, I believe that the readership of Microorganisms will greatly appreciate a collection of updated epidemiologic, virologic, and clinically-oriented papers on the many obscure aspects of this new pandemic.

In more detail, these are some of the most pressing questions in this topic:

1. Epidemiologic aspects: i) Is the infection kinetics the same in different countries? ii) What is the impact of different demographic composition on lethality and mortality rate? iii) What is the impact of different countermeasures on the SARS-CoV2 spread? v) Seroprevalence? vi) R0 and Rt in different countries?
2. Virology: i) Innovative molecular assays? ii) What is the impact of serologic assays on rapid diagnostics? iii) Drug susceptibility? iv) Genetic variability? v) Humoral and T-cell response kinetics?
3. Clinical: i) What is the Sars-CoV2 load and disease progression? ii) What is the effect of experimental drugs on virologic and clinical recovery? iii) NT levels and disease progression? iv) progression scores? v) COVID-associated clinical pictures? vi) risk factors for disease progression and death?

Dr. Fausto Baldanti
Dr. Raffaele Bruno
Guest Editors

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