Stranger Months: How SARS-CoV-2, Fear of Contagion, and Lockdown Measures Impacted Attendance and Clinical Activity During February and March 2020 at an Urban Emergency Department in Milan.

Objectives: An unprecedented wave of patients with acute respiratory failure due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) disease 2019 (COVID-19) hit emergency departments (EDs) in Lombardy, starting in the second half of February 2020. This study describes the direct and indirect impacts of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak on an urban major-hospital ED.

Methods: Data regarding all patients diagnosed with COVID-19 presenting from February 1 to March 31, 2020, were prospectively collected, while data regarding non-COVID patients presenting within the same period in 2019 were retrospectively retrieved.

Genetics of human arterial hypertension.

Although everybody agrees that each individual's blood pressure variance is under substantial genetic control, its quantitative estimates vary from 35 to 70%, according to the different experimental designs. The problem is that, in spite of such substantial contribution, the discovery of the "genes that cause hypertension" has been quite discouraging. This is indeed caused by the multifactorial nature of the disease and no improvement is to be expected without dissecting hypertension in its major pathogenetic pathways.