We would like to thank Dr Steve Abramson for inviting us to serve as guest editors of the first section on rheumatological aspects of COVID-19 to appear in Current Opinions of Rheumatology. We believe our orientation to the intersection of infectious diseases and rheumatic and immunologic diseases and our combined training programme in these specialties gives us a unique perspective to address the implications of the pandemic on our field but are humbled by our limited capacity to keep up with the onslaught of data occurring daily. Never the less we have chosen our authors carefully and hope that their perspectives will add meaningfully to efforts to come to grips with a new disease of global proportions affecting our patients, our practices and ourselves.
Among the invited authors, we asked Dr Michael Putman (pp. 441–448), an academic rheumatologist at Northwestern, and author of the highly successful Evidence Based Rheum podcast to attempt to summarize, categorize and synthesize the varied sources of scientific information that are being blasted at the rheumatology community at an exhausting rate. His experience in combining the power of social media and the rigor of critical appraisal of data offers some hope for all of us to keep abreast of this rapidly growing field. We also thank Dr Tomas Dörner (pp. 449–457), a noted rheumatologist and immunologist, and his colleagues from Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, to analyse for us the underlying science and rationale for the use of antimalarial therapy in treatment of COVD-19. Who would have foreseen that since we first asked him to write this contribution the enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine would rise like Icarus, on wings of unbridled enthusiasm, only to fly too close to the sun. Hydroxychloroquine now appears to be a treatment that will not be enduringly pursued despite over 200 trials currently registered on www.clinicaltrials.gov. The science behind the drug is enduring however and worthy of this excellent review.
We are also particularly grateful for the article organized by Dr. Philip Robertson University of Queensland, on the Epidemiology from the COVID-19 in patients with immune mediated inflammatory diseases. The background here is particularly interesting in that Dr Robertson and his coauthors, Dr Jinoos Yazdany and Dr Milena Gianfrancesco (pp. 434–440), are principles among the extraordinary group of global rheumatologists who created the COVID-19 Rheumatology Global Alliance (https://rheum-covid.org/), an organization whose mission is to collect, analyse and disseminate information about COVID-19 and rheumatology to patients, physicians and other relevant groups to improve the care of patients with rheumatic disease. It is remarkable to see not only the speed but also the productivity of this group, as they are leading the way to study and analyse the global epidemiology of COVID-19 in our patients. For all of you reading this, I urge you, if you have patients who have developed COVID-19, to go the Alliance website and enter them into their registry. Its quick, easy and a major contribution to the global effort.
Finally, I (LHC) ask Dr Cassandra Calabrese (pp. 429–433), my coeditor, to do the heaviest lifting and attempt to write a critical piece reflecting upon the credibility of the guidelines published by our major global organizations from the RHEUM–ID Perspective. Along with Dr Bethany Lehman (429–433), an infectious disease specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, they have written an elegant commentary on these living documents, emphasizing areas that are most vulnerable to change from an infectious disease perspective. A special thanks goes to both of these authors, as they had to write at the last minute by design, in an effort to provide the timeliest reflections.
This edition is like no other publication we have ever been associated with given the pace of biomedical research, public interest and controversy. We often now say we feel like Sisyphus trying to keep up with the science of COVID-19. We will keep pushing.
Leonard H. Calabrese
Cassandra Calabrese
Acknowledgements
None.
Financial support and sponsorship
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Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.