Open Access Review Article

Use of Antibody/Antigen Diagnostic Testing and Face Coverings with Traditional Non-Pharmaceutical Intervention Measures to Mitigate Human-to- Human Coronavirus (COVID-19) Transmission at the Community Level

Cameron YS Lee1*, DMD, MD, PHD, MPH, MSEd and Kristin L Lee2, DDS

1Private Practice, Oral, Maxillofacial and Reconstructive Surgery, Aiea, HI. 96701, Professor of Surgery, Temple University, Kornberg School of Dentistry, Philadelphia, PA. 19140, USA

2Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Resident, University of California at San Francisco/Highland General Hospital, Oakland, CA. 94602, USA

Corresponding Author

Received Date:August 03, 2020;  Published Date: August 28, 2020

Abstract

In December 2019, the Health Commission of Hubei province, China reported a cluster of new cases of viral pneumonia later identified as a highly infectious novel human coronavirus that causes the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2), renamed Covid-19. In January 2020, the first confirmed case of Covid-19 was reported in the United States. As of this writing, Covid-19 has spread globally, with greater than 700,000 fatalities and infecting over 21 million people around the world in just over 8 months. The United States is now the epicenter with over 5 million reported cases and greater than 170,000 deaths. The Covid-19 pandemic has emerged as an unprecedented global crisis overwhelming healthcare systems around the world. Public health authorities must rely on non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPIs) measures to mitigate the spread of coronavirus transmission as no vaccine or antiviral therapy is available. As the number of infectious disease cases continue to rise with increasing mortality, the authors recommend routine antibody/antigen diagnostic testing of not only symptomatic persons for the coronavirus, but asymptomatic and presymptomatic individuals as well. The universal policy of routine use of face coverings when out in public should also be implemented as it is now recognized that viral shedding can occur several days before the onset of clinical symptoms and last for days. In this article, we describe the public health strategies and the challenges public health authorities may encounter in this 21st century global pandemic to flatten the pandemic curve.

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