COVID-19: What Paramedics Need to Know!

Pandemicsare a rare andstressful time for healthcare providers with overwhelming caseloads, rapidly evolvinginformation, and competing priorities of self-protection,while maintaininga high level of patient care.The goal of this article is to provide paramedicswith the necessaryinformation to support their clinical practiceduring the COVID-19 pandemic.Two previous coronaviruses caused international responses; the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-1) in 2003, and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) in 2012.1The currentcoronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, hasbecome a public health emergency and global pandemic. While the terms are often used interchangeably, SARS-CoV-2 refers to the virus, and COVID-19 refers to the illness.For simplicitywe will use the term COVID-19 for both