European Journal of Emergency Medicine
Möckel, Martin; Bachmann, Ulrike; Behringer, Wilhelm; Pfäfflin, Frieder; Stegemann, Miriam Songa.
Introduction
Acute outbreaks of novel virus caused diseases like coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) challenge the national and international healthcare systems and specifically the emergency departments (EDs) as patients, even if they have only mild symptoms, intuitively present in the ED once they fear to have a serious disease. Therefore, EDs need to prepare fast and effectively to address the challenge of walk-in patients who might transmit the virus SARSCoV-2 without displaying severe symptoms themselves, to protect personnel and vulnerable patient groups who are typically present in the ED at any time like patients with immunosuppression, chronic disease and older age. The outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China and the transmission to Europe is a typical example with some lessons learned for the ED. This early report reflects the situation from a German perspective including the capital city of Berlin.
Keywords
Clinical aspects, diagnosis, treatment; Epidemiology