Proactive measures for the pandemic COVID-19 infection in outpatient clinics of Otolaryngology Department

摘要

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a serious pan- demic. According to a report from Wuhan, China, 40 (29%) health pro- fessionals were among the first 138 patients to be consecutively hospitalized. 1 The reported symptoms of COVID-19 included cough (67.8%), fever (43.8%), increased sputum production (33.7%), sore throat (13.9%), and nasal congestion (4.8%). 2 Some patients had only hyposmia and dysgeusia as their initial symptoms. In particular, health care workers, such as otolaryngologists, who work on upper aerodigestive tract diseases, have the highest risk of contracting COVID-19. Specifically, the first physicians to die from COVID-19 in Wuhan and from severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Hong Kong pandemic were otolaryngologists.