For some reason, masks seem to provoke very strong opinions in medicine. Despite being one of the closest things we have to parachutes – devices so simple and obvious that RCT evidence may not even be needed – people lament the lack of evidence, and mistakenly translate the paucity of […]
COVID-19
44 posts
I have already written at length about the mechanism of transmission of COVID-19. Based on basic science and the transmission of other viruses, such as influenza, it was easy to predict in early 2020 that COVID-19 would spread through the airborne route. As more super-spreader events occurred, and more data […]
About a week ago, colchicine seemed to come out of the blue as a possible the treatment of COVID-19 with the COLCORONA trial. For most of us, colchicine wasn’t even on the radar. Now, many are rushing to prescribe it, but does the evidence really support its use?
I don’t think that the concept of “aerosol generating medical procedures” (AGMP) is well supported by scientific evidence. However, this terminology is so widely employed that I will use it throughout this series of posts on high risk medical procedures. The term “AGMP” is really used to identify clinical scenarios […]
I have been working on a deep dive into steroids for community acquired pneumonia for a long time. The content of that evidence review was just recorded as an episode of the EM Cases Journal Jam, which will be out soon. My focus was on steroids for community acquired pneumonia, […]
I am working hard on updating all the evidence around “aerosol generating medical procedures” or AGMPs, but I think this is a failed and probably harmful paradigm. I will still complete my write-ups because the terminology is so widely used, but I think we would all be better off if […]
In early April, I wrote a long post covering all the science I could find about aerosols and droplets. The basic summary was that this is an area of medicine with lots of misconceptions, poor assumptions, and incomplete science. There was good evidence that previous coronaviruses were spread by aerosols. […]
COVID-19 has resulted in many conflicting messages. One area of extreme importance is the health and safety of healthcare workers. I have repeatedly heard that our infection control measures are perfect, and cannot be questioned, while simultaneously seeing numerous colleagues contract the virus. When it comes to the safety of […]
I’ve been posting about the hydroxychloroquine literature since the beginning of this pandemic. The message at the outset was pretty clear: “there is no reason to be using chloroquine at this point.” I have updated that primary post a number of times and the message has remained unchanged. There was […]