Since a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown etiology was first reported in China in December 2019, the number of confirmed cases with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS-CoV-2]) worldwide has been increasing, and nearly two million patients are expected to have died by February 2021. Globally, COVID-19 is being considered a primary pulmonary disease, but it is more than a lung infection. This is because patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 present with a variety of clinical signs and symptoms involving many organs, ranging from fever, inflammation, myocardial injury, shock, and the development of coronary artery aneurysm. SARS-CoV-2 shows unique characteristics in its transmission, mortality, and stability in different environmental conditions. During COVID-19 pandemic, about 10 drugs have been clinically tried with none proven to be effective. With no prospect for effective drugs in the near future, there are currently possibilities of success with vaccines and convalescent plasma. Along with the prospect of vaccines and other therapeutic drugs, special precautions (isolation, testing, treating, and tracing) are strictly recommended until we return to normal situations. In this review we comprehensively analyzed the clinical presentations, characteristics, and outcomes of patients with COVID-19, and tried to assess the clinical effects of some drugs as part of the ongoing efforts to understand COVID-19 pandemic.

The objective of measurement of bio-signals in measurement uncertainty is not to determine the true value as closely as possible, but to determine a measured value and to assign the interval of the value. The measurement uncertainty is estimated by type A and B evaluations, depending on whether they are evaluated by statistics or the mathematical probability theory. Intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring is used often for early detection of inherent risk relevant to neurosurgical procedures leading to permanent neurological injury, while it is still potentially reversible. In this study, we evaluated the uncertainties in somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs), which are used for monitoring sensory neural pathways. In a 45-year-old man who underwent cervical laminectomy, SSEPs were monitored using the ISIS IOM SYSTEM (Inomed, Emendingen, Germany) to evaluate the uncertainties. Expanded uncertainty were 0.88 mV and 1.22 ms, for amplitude and latency, respectively. Measured values and corresponding uncertainties of amplitude and latency were 2.78 ± 0.88 mV and 24.02 ± 1.22 ms, respectively. The expanded uncertainty (0.88 mV) of the amplitude was approximately 30% of the mean value (2.78 mV). A reasonable explanation for this would be the effects of variables such as electromagnetic waves (diathermy and warming blankets), temperature, blood pressure, sex and body mass index on SSEPs. Careful attention is required in interpreting SSEPs.