In December 2019, an unusual form of pneumonia of unknown origin was identified in Wuhan and soon expanded into an intercontinental pandemic that affected nations all over the world. The unusual pneumonia was subsequently named COVID-19. The management of COVID-19 disease has been highly dependent on the early identification of patients who are positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection. For detecting the SARS-CoV-2 virus in upper or lower respiratory tracts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend strategic sampling approaches. Most countries collect nasopharyngeal swabs and oropharyngeal swabs for rapid viral testing by experienced healthcare workers. Due to the increase in single-day cases, the high cost of RT-PCR, and the requirement for greater coverage in order to detect COVID-19 infections, the screening method has been changed to the Rapid Antigen Test during this phase of the pandemic in India. Considering the limited sensitivity of the fast antigen test compared to the sputum test, and the benefit of having additional resources available from an already established TB network, policymakers should consider implementing COVID-19 with sputum testing. For India, which has 1.3 billion people and limited resources, contemplating a community level sample collection of COVID-19 samples will be an effective decision if scientific data is used for this purpose will be an effective choice for the country with more than 1.3 billion population and limited resources.

We describe a visual algorithm to help prevent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) contagion as well as manage COVID-19 disease according to categories of clinical severity. The algorithm is timely, with multiple countries worldwide declaring repeat surges in SARS-CoV-2 infections following the easing of lockdown measures. Its flowchart assimilates key effective interventions in a visual manner that will assist healthcare workers to manage COVID-19 disease algorithmically, and policymakers to suppress further SARS-CoV-2 waves. Importantly, we include the innovative use of topical p-menthane-3,8-diol spray by the British Army for COVID-19 Support Force personnel, which in light of its coronavirucidal properties, deserves wider dissemination. This algorithm has the potential to be updated as numerous studies are concluded globally.

Currently, the COVID-19 pandemic is the most discussed subject in medical researches worldwide. As the knowledge is expanded about the disease, more hypotheses become created. A recent study on the viral protein interaction map revealed that SARS-CoV-2 open reading frame 8 (ORF8) interacts with human DNA methyl transferase1 (DNMT1), an active epigenetic agent in DNA methylation. Moreover, DNMT1 is a contributor to a variety of chronic diseases which could cause some epigenetic dysregulation in infected cells, especially leukocytes, pancreatic beta, and endothelial cells. Regarding the fact that epigenetic alterations have a partial, but not completely reversible phenomena, it raises the question that if this interaction may cause long-term complications such as diabetes, atherosclerosis, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. Accordingly, long follow-up studies on the recovered patients from COVID-19 are recommended.

Relative internet search volumes (RSV) is now being consider as a measurement of awareness for most of the trending topics. During the recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, many researchers used the RSVs to interpret the population responses to the pandemic in various ways. By using the RSVs searched by Persian language people, we demonstrated that the Iranian people increased their knowledge and awareness of COVID-19 during the early phases of the disease before the first peak. However, their relative searches about the COVID-19 and its clinical symptoms decreased gradually despite of the gradual rise of the confirmed cases. Their less tendency to seek information about the COVID-19 could be one of the possible explanation for the increasing number of confirmed cases even several days after easing the disease related lockdown.