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Background The course of disease in mild and moderate COVID-19 has many implications for mobile patients, such as the risk of spread of the infection, precautions taken, and investigations targeted at preventing transmission. Methods Three hundred thirty-one adults were hospitalized from January 21 to February 22, 2020, and classified as severe (10%) or critical (4.8%) cases; 1.5% died. Two hundred eighty-two (85.2%) mild or moderate cases were admitted to regular wards. Epidemiological, demographic, clinical, chest computed tomography (CT) scan, laboratory, treatment, and outcome data from patient records were analyzed retrospectively. Results Patients were symptomatic for 9.82±5.75 (1–37) days. Pulmonary involvement was demonstrated on a chest CT scan in 97.9% of cases. It took 16.81±8.54 (3–49) days from the appearance of the first symptom until 274 patients tested virus-negative in naso- and oropharyngeal (NP) swabs, blood, urine, and stool, and 234 (83%) patients were asymptomatic for 9.09±7.82 (1–44) days. Subsequently, 131 patients were discharged. One hundred sixty-nine remained in the hospital; these patients tested virus-free and were clinically asymptomatic because of widespread persisting or increasing pulmonary infiltrates. Hospitalization took 16.24±7.57 (2–47) days; the time interval from the first symptom to discharge was 21.37±7.85 (3–52) days. Conclusions With an asymptomatic phase, disease courses are unexpectedly long until the stage of virus negativity. NP swabs are not reliable in the later stages of COVID-19. Pneumonia outlasts virus-positive tests if sputum is not acquired. Imminent pulmonary fibrosis in high-risk groups demands follow-up examinations. Investigation of promising antiviral agents should heed the specific needs of mild and moderate COVID-19 patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. Primary adhesive capsulitis (AC), or frozen shoulder, is an insidious and idiopathic disease. Severe pain is predominant in the first two of the three stages of the condition,which can last up to 21 months. Design, Setting, and Subjects. Sixty volunteers with primary AC were randomly assigned to acupuncture with press tack needles compared with press tack placebos in a patient- and observer-blinded placebo-controlled study. The participants were subsequently offered classical needle acupuncture in an open follow-up clinical application. Thirty-four volunteers received conservative therapy, including 10 classical needle acupuncture treatments over 10 weeks, 13 volunteers received conservative therapy without classical needle acupuncture. All subjects agreed to follow-up after one year. Methods. Acupuncture treatment was performed using a specific distal needling concept, using reflex areas on distant extremities avoiding local treatment. Results. An immediate improvement of 3.3 ± 3.2 points in Constant-Murley Shoulder Score (CMS) pain subscore was seen in the press tack needles group and of 1.6 ± 2.8 points in the press tack placebos group (P < 0.02). Conservative therapy including classical needle acupuncture significantly improved the pain subscore within 14.9 ± 15.9 weeks compared with 30.9 ± 15.8 weeks with only conservative therapy (P < 0.001). Conclusion. The efficiency of distal needling acupuncture on immediate pain reduction was demonstrated in patients with AC and confirmed the applicability of press tack needles and press tack placebos for double-blind studies in acupuncture. Subsequent clinical application observation proved that results obtained with press tack needles/press tack placebos can be transferred to classical needle acupuncture. Integrating acupuncture with conservative therapy showed superior effectiveness with respect to the time course of the recovery process in AC compared with conservative therapy alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]