Two Years into the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons Learned.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a highly transmissible and virulent human-infecting coronavirus that emerged in late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, causing a respiratory disease called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has massively impacted global public health and caused widespread disruption to daily life. The crisis caused by COVID-19 has mobilized scientists and public health authorities across the world to rapidly improve our knowledge about this devastating disease, shedding light on its management and control, and spawned the development of new countermeasures. Here we provide an overview of the state of the art of knowledge gained in the last 2 years about the virus and COVID-19, including its origin and natural reservoir hosts, viral etiology, epidemiology, modes of transmission, clinical manifestations, pathophysiology, diagnosis, treatment, prevention, emerging variants, and vaccines, highlighting important differences from previously known highly pathogenic coronaviruses. We also discuss selected key discoveries from each topic and underline the gaps of knowledge for future investigations.

Widespread contamination of SARS-CoV-2 on highly touched surfaces in Brazil during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although SARS-CoV-2 surface contamination has been investigated in health care settings, little is known about the SARS-CoV-2 surface contamination in public urban areas, particularly in tropical countries. Here, we investigated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 on high-touch surfaces in a large city in Brazil, one of the most affected countries by the COVID-19 pandemic in the world. A total of 400 surface samples were collected in February 2021 in the City of Recife, Northeastern Brazil. A total of 97 samples (24.2%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-qPCR using the CDC-USA protocol. All the collection sites, except one (18/19, 94.7%) had at least one environmental surface sample contaminated. SARS-CoV-2 positivity was higher in public transport terminals (47/84, 55.9%), followed by health care units (26/84, 30.9%), beach areas (4/21, 19.0%), public parks (14/105, 13.3%), supply centre (2/21, 9.5%), and public markets (4/85, 4.7%). Toilets, ATMs, handrails, playgrounds and outdoor gyms were identified as fomites with the highest rates of SARS-CoV-2 detection. Taken together, our data provide a real-world picture of SARS-CoV-2 dispersion in highly populated tropical areas and identify critical control points that need to be targeted to break SARS-CoV-2 transmission chains.