Symptoms, epidemiology and diagnosis: a mini-review on coronavirus

Binshaya, A. S.; Alenzi, F. Q. B.; Mohamed, Bamaga Awal Zaki Hajir Alsaihati Adnan Alwatban Fahad Aldakheel Abdulaziz Alanazi Nahed Alharthi Alanazi A. F.; Alanazi, A. F.

There is worldwide concern about the rapid spread of the Covid19 (COVID-19) pandemic which now affects almost every country in the world. Generating accurate diagnosis of COVID-19 by testing hundreds of thousands of people per day, and the search for effective therapeutics and vaccines are currently the focus of intense research in large numbers of companies and academic institutions around the world. This review will describe the background, origin, epidemiology, symptoms of COVID-19 infection, and its methods of detection. Because of the rapidly changing news on the development of new therapeutic approaches (many of which have already been discarded), and the constantly breaking news - on a daily basis - about the development of vaccines (there are currently 22 separate vaccine programmes worldwide), we will leave the future therapeutic and vaccination options outside the scope of this review. We will address these topics later, once some clarity has prevailed surrounding the large number of putative therapeutic and vaccination options that are currently being explored and an evidence-based approach can be meaningfully applied to interpreting how patient management, and national epidemiological management, can benefit by these emerging breakthroughs.