Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Sep;57(6):365-388.
doi: 10.1080/10408363.2020.1783198. Epub 2020 Jul 9.

The COVID-19 pandemic

Marco Ciotti  1 , Massimo Ciccozzi  2 , Alessandro Terrinoni  3 , Wen-Can Jiang  4 , Cheng-Bin Wang  4 , Sergio Bernardini  3   5
Affiliations
Review

The COVID-19 pandemic

Marco Ciotti et al. Crit Rev Clin Lab Sci. 2020 Sep.

Abstract

In December 2019, an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown origin was reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Pneumonia cases were epidemiologically linked to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. Inoculation of respiratory samples into human airway epithelial cells, Vero E6 and Huh7 cell lines, led to the isolation of a novel respiratory virus whose genome analysis showed it to be a novel coronavirus related to SARS-CoV, and therefore named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2 is a betacoronavirus belonging to the subgenus Sarbecovirus. The global spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the thousands of deaths caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19) led the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic on 12 March 2020. To date, the world has paid a high toll in this pandemic in terms of human lives lost, economic repercussions and increased poverty. In this review, we provide information regarding the epidemiology, serological and molecular diagnosis, origin of SARS-CoV-2 and its ability to infect human cells, and safety issues. Then we focus on the available therapies to fight COVID-19, the development of vaccines, the role of artificial intelligence in the management of the pandemic and limiting the spread of the virus, the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on our lifestyle, and preparation for a possible second wave.

Keywords: ACE2; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; cytokine storm; pneumonia; rRT-PCR; serology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

LinkOut - more resources