The world didn’t face a situation like this since a very long time and a pandemic is new to many European health carers. In this light the sharing of information is of utmost importance.

This was the objective of the first COVID webinar on March 28. Physicians from 9 European countries provided updates and shared their precious experience about the management of the pandemic in their respective country with the aim to help their colleagues.

The emergency physicians from Italy, the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Turkey, Norway and Greece all finalised their presentation with “Lessons learned”; more a personal reflection on the situation instead of looking at the numbers.

The common conclusion is that the preparedness of the healthcare systems in whole Europe is not up to par. It’s an eye opener we must learn from and turn the ugly truth into a lesson.

The most striking remark from Pascual Piñera Salmerón:

“It is not a time for reproaches, just work, then we will have to make a deep reflection.”

A part of this reflection will contain the conclusions that:

• Europe must be less arrogant. To think that something like this would not happen to us.
• In many cases there was no correct translation of strategic crisis management to field operations.
• The political management of the crisis is chaotic and different in every country.
• Governments have failed to develop effective policies with regards to the prompt availability of personal protective equipment (PPE).
• Protection of the staff should be a much higher priority. It motivates them to fight.

A strong encouragement for all to be humble, identify common parameters and standards for the EDs and work cooperatively and effectively to put an end to this emergency as soon as possible.

There is also a lot of positive to mention. Health care workers are demonstrating a strong collaboration, transcending specialties, proving their commitment to fight against a common enemy and towards a common goal.

So many people stepped up to help selflessly and got infected or even died providing care to patients or helping in any other way. We need to remember them forever.

The crisis has made very clear that the European Union needs to progress when it comes to protocols on a European level. By sharing information, we can help pushing for a European COVID ED protocol.

For a better Emergency Medicine care, ask for more. More nurses, more doctors, more services. Support us. https://emergencymedicine-day.org

The next webinar in this series will be organised on April 18, 9:00 CEST. Do not miss it!

In the first edition of our paediatric webinar series, held April 7, we started to review the current state of the art and continue to share experiences from the PED in highly impacted countries; France, Spain and Italy. It was a very interesting webinar, with many participants and a lot of questions answered. 

The recording is now available on the EUSEM Academy: Guidance on COVID-19 in Paediatrics Open access for everybody.

The PDF's and Q&A will be shared here as well soon. 

With a special thanks to Ruud Nijman, Roberto Velasco and Luigi Titomanlio for organising this.

Please note that if you login with your EUSEM account, you can ask questions in the forum and exchange experiences or suggest topics for upcoming webinars. So let's share that information!
When logged in you have access to much more material.

You'll find the webinar from March 28 there as well: COVID-19, A Unique Insight from Highly Impacted Countries 

SAVE THE DATE!: The next webinar will be held on the 24th of April at 14:00 CEST.

Please find two new reports shared in the Research Database of the Pediatric Section of EUSEM http://www.pemdatabase.org/

COVID-19 infections in Children, from The Lancet, March 27, 2020

COVID-19 in children: the link in the transmission chain, from The Lancet Infectuous Disease, March 30, 2020

SARS-CoV-2 Infection in a Pediatric Department in Milan, from the Pediatric Infectuous Disease Journal, March 31, 2020 

We would like to bring to your attention the publication of the “guidance on the management of clinical trials during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic”.

The European Medicines Agency, Good Clinical Practice (GCP) Inspectors Working Group, the Clinical Trials Facilitation and Coordination Group (CTFG, a working group of the Heads of Medicines Agency (HMA)), the Clinical Trials Expert Group (CTEG, a working group of the European Commission representing Ethics Committees and National Competent Authorities) and the European Commission (EC) acknowledge the impact of COVID-19 on the health system and broader society, and the impact it may have on clinical trials and trial participants. Extraordinary measures may need to be implemented and trials adjusted due to e.g. trial participants being in self-isolation/quarantine, limited access to public places (including hospitals) due to the risk of spreading infections, and health care professionals being committed to critical tasks. Therefore, EMA, EC and HMA strongly support the efforts of the GCP Inspectors’ Working Group for developing a harmonised EU/EEA-level guidance to mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the conduct of clinical trials.

The situation is evolving, and pragmatic actions may be required to deal with the challenges of conducting research, and in ensuring the rights, safety and wellbeing of participants. The points mentioned below are intended to provide guidance for all parties involved in clinical trials during this time.

Due to the urgency, this guidance is issued without prior public consultation. The sponsors should note that due to the rapidly evolving situation further updates to this guidance are possible and likely.

Sharing information on Covid-19 is extremely important right now. That's why we would like to share these articles from the Published Ahead of Print page of the European Journal of Emergency Medicine, https://journals.lww.com/euro-emergencymed/Citation/publishahead/ 

COVID-19: emergency medicine perspectives from Hong Kong
Hung, Kevin K.C.; Walline, Joseph H.; Graham, Colin A.

COVID-19: response plan for International Medical Assistance companies

François-Xavier Duchateau, Geoffrey Ramin and Anne Lepetit

COVID-19: one threat, one world, one response (magical thinking)
Òscar Miró 

How emergency departments prepare for virus disease outbreaks like COVID-19
Martin Möckel, Ulrike Bachmann, Wilhelm Behringer,Frieder Pfäfflin and Miriam Songa Stegemann

COVID-19, a UK perspective
Joanna Sriskandar and Benjamin Bloom

NEW DATE: 30 April 2020 - Midnight (CEST) +02:00 UTC 

While we are all facing an exceptional situation due to the impact of COVID-19 in Europe and worldwide, we are all aware that your time is precious at the moment and highly dedicated to your hospital. EUSEM consequently decided to prolong the abstract submission period to 30 April 2020. 

We all hope the situation will get better very soon and we will all see you in Copenhagen in September!