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Background Following the publication of 2014 consensus statement regarding mass critical care during public health emergencies, much has been learned about surge responses and the care of overwhelming numbers of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.1 Gaps in prior pandemic planning were identified and require modification in the midst of ongoing surge throughout the world. Methods The Task Force for Mass Critical Care (TFMCC) adopted a modified version of established rapid guideline methodologies from the World Health Organization2 and the Guidelines International Network-McMaster Guideline Development Checklist.3 With a consensus development process incorporating expert opinion to define important questions and extract evidence, TFMCC developed relevant pandemic surge suggestions in a structured manner, incorporating peer-reviewed literature, “gray” evidence from lay media sources, and anecdotal experiential evidence. Results Ten suggestions were identified regarding staffing, load-balancing, communication, and technology. Staffing models are suggested with resilience strategies to support critical care staff. Intensive care unit (ICU) surge strategies and strain indicators are suggested to enhance ICU prioritization tactics to maintain contingency level care and avoid crisis triage, with early transfer strategies to further load-balance care. We suggest intensivists and hospitalists be engaged with the incident command structure to ensure two-way communication, situational awareness, and the use of technology to support critical care delivery and families of patients in intensive care units (ICUs). Conclusions A subcommittee from the Task Force for Mass Critical Care offers interim evidence-informed operational strategies to assist hospitals and communities to plan for and respond to surge capacity demands from COVID-19.

Stigma and discrimination have been reported to cause unnecessary delay in mentally-ill patients seeking help, which adversely affects a patient's outcome. The attitude of health care professionals has been described as being, even more, negative than that of the general public, which worsens the prognosis for patients with a mental illness.The aim of this study was to describe the attitude of nurses toward mentally-ill patients in a general hospital.All the nurses in the hospital were administered a 40-item Community Attitudes Toward the Mentally-Ill (CAMI) questionnaire which determines whether the mentally-ill are viewed as "inferior;" deserve "sympathy;" perceived as a "threat" to society or "acceptable" if residing in community dwellings. The analysis of variance was performed to determine association of the four subscales with the individual characteristics, including age, gender, education, qualification type, position held, contact and contact type.Out of a total of 990 nurses, 308 (31%) completed the CAMI questionnaire. The mean scores for the authoritarian (2.85), benevolent (3.66), social restrictiveness (2.97) and community mental health ideology (3.48) subscales reflected a negative attitude of nurses toward mentally-ill patients. The direct or indirect utilization of the mental health facilities resulted in significantly higher authoritarian and lower benevolence scores, indicating a positive attitude change in this group of nurses.Despite the small size and selective nature of the sample, the nurses' negative attitude toward the mentally-ill patients provides useful baseline data for further large-scale studies and underscores the need for psychoeducation of different health care professionals, including nurses.ملخص البحث: تهدف هذه الدراسة لوصف سلوك طاقم التمريض في المستشفيات العامة تجاه المرضى الذين يعانون من مرض عقلي. قدم استبيان سلوك المجتمع تجاه هؤلاء المرضى المصابين بالمرض العقلي (CAMI) لطاقم التمريض العامل بمستشفى حكومي بدولة الكويت ويتكون الاستبيان من 40 بندا يحدد كيفية النظر تجاه هؤلاء المرضى أن كانت دونية، ام تعاطف، أو تهديد للمجتمع أم هي نظره تتقبل وجودهم في محيط المجتمع. خلصت الدراسة إلى وجود سلوك سلبي لطاقم التمريض تجاه هؤلاء المرضى وينصح الباحثون بإجراء دراسات أخرى تشمل جميع العاملين في مجال الرعاية الصحية.

Allele frequencies and population statistics of 15 forensically-important STR loci were estimated for seven populations residing in the State of Kuwait. The populations were: Saudi Arabian, Iraqi, Egyptian, Iranian, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi, and Indian. All loci were highly polymorphic. After correction, only one locus in one population sample (Saudi Arabian) showed departure from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The populations cluster (MDS Plot) generally with geographic distance and substructure effects for even these seven diverse populations is Fst