What Nurses Should Know About COVID-19

Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) is a highly infectious illness caused by novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The World Health Organization recently designated SARS-CoV-2 associated COVID-19 to be a global pandemic. The fear or spread of COVID-19 has touched every continent. The importance of understanding the drivers of COVID-19 on community health is amplified by the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to rapidly change genetic structure, our restricted knowledge about the disease, and limited or non-existent vaccines and treatment options. An understanding of basic COVID-19 epidemiology is a prerequisite for curtailing transmission, preventing morbidity and mortality, developing efficacious vaccines, implementing effective infection control protocols, and applying treatment algorithms.

Coronavirus Disease - 2019-nCoV (COVID-19)

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (2020b), coronaviruses refer to a large family of viruses known to be zoonotic (transmitted from animals to humans) and cause a variety of illnesses from the common cold to more concerning diseases such as severe lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs). These viruses are called coronaviruses because their surfaces have crown-like spikes and "corona" is the Latin word for crown (WHO, 2020b). The potential community health risk caused by the current coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is high for young children, older adults, persons with comorbid cardiac or respiratory diseases, and immunocompromised individuals because their immune systems may be weak, making them more susceptible to contracting the coronavirus. Other members of the community that are at risk include healthcare and essential community workers at the forefront of this global epidemic, anyone with close person to person contact, and recent travelers to Wuhan and its surrounding provinces in China (Chinazzi et al., 2020). Healthcare and other frontline workers must be knowledgeable and prepared for the global outbreak of the coronavirus.