COVID-19 and asthma management
Question:
3/8/2020
We are currently in the process of establishing protocols for screening potential COVID-19 patients in our practice. We currently have several hundred asthmatics in our practice. The typical symptoms for COVID-19 of cough, shortness of breath, and fever could be very similar to an asthmatic having a viral induced exacerbation. Would PF meters help sort out? What if no PF meter available? Would there be a significant downside of giving OCS or high dose ICS to known asthmatic patient who also has COVID-19? Thanks for considering these questions.
Answer:
The current continually updated recommendations for COVID-19 screening and management are available at the CDC website: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/index.html.
At this time, management of virally-induced asthma exacerbations from COVID-19, or any other respiratory virus, remain the same.
The current critically important COVID-19 mitigation measures for patients with asthma, and everyone else, to adhere to are:
1) social distancing
2) frequent hand washing
3) keeping one's hands out of one's face
For additional information, we launched podcast episode 25 here. This podcast has lots of information about next steps.
Eric Macy, MD, MS, AAAAI