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The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a barrage of primary research and reviews. We investigated the publishing process, time and resource wasting, and assessed the methodological quality of the reviews on artificial intelligence techniques to diagnose COVID-19 in medical images. We searched nine databases from inception until 1 September 2020. Two independent reviewers did all steps of identification, extraction, and methodological credibility assessment of records. Out of 725 records, 22 reviews analysing 165 primary studies met the inclusion criteria. This review covers 174,277 participants in total, including 19,170 diagnosed with COVID-19. The methodological credibility of all eligible studies was rated as critically low: 95% of papers had significant flaws in reporting quality. On average, 7.24 (range: 0–45) new papers were included in each subsequent review, and 14% of studies did not include any new paper into consideration. Almost three-quarters of the studies included less than 10% of available studies. More than half of the reviews did not comment on the previously published reviews at all. Much wasting time and resources could be avoided if referring to previous reviews and following methodological guidelines. Such information chaos is alarming. It is high time to draw conclusions from what we experienced and prepare for future pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maskne, a newly coined term deriving from the contraction of mask-related acne, is a form of mechanical acne resulting from continuous textile–skin adherence and friction. Prolonged mask use heats up the face environment, thus modifying skin microbiota and sebum production. Although effective prevalence is unknown, since the pandemic began and the prolonged use of masks was extended to the general population, maskne has been a frequent topic of consultation among dermatologists. This term has been successfully introduced into common language, with more than 200,000 hashtags on social media, where it is also possible to find "home remedies" that can worsen this dermatosis. The aim of this paper is to discuss the pathogenesis, address clinicians on the correct differential diagnoses among facial dermatoses, and move towards the correct therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A commercially available isothermal amplification of SARS-CoV-2 RNA was applied to self-collected saliva samples using dry dental cotton rolls, which were held in the mouth for two minutes. Of 212 tests, isothermal amplification yielded three (0.14%) invalid results, 120 (56.6%) positive results and 89 (42%) negative results. Compared to reference RT-PCR assays routinely performed simultaneously on nasopharyngeal swabs, excluding the three invalid isothermal amplification assays and one RT-PCR invalid assay, these figures indicated that 119/123 (96.7%) samples were positive in both methods and 85/85 samples were negative in both methods. Four positive buccal swabs which were missed by the isothermal amplification, exhibited Ct values of 26–34 in reference RT-PCR assays. Positive isothermal amplification detection was achieved in less than 10 min. Supervision of the self-sampling procedure was key to achieve these performances. These data support the proposal to use the protocol reported in this paper, including supervised buccal self-sampling, to screen people suspected of having COVID-19 at the point of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]