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The COVID-19 pandemic had a great negative impact on nursing homes, with massive outbreaks being reported in care facilities all over the world, affecting not only the residents but also the care workers and visitors. Due to their advanced age and numerous underlying diseases, the inhabitants of long-term care facilities represent a vulnerable population that should benefit from additional protective measures against contamination. Recently, multiple countries such as France, Spain, Belgium, Canada, and the United States of America reported that an important fraction from the total number of deaths due to the SARS-CoV-2 infection emerged from nursing homes. The scope of this paper was to present the latest data regarding the COVID-19 spread in care homes worldwide, identifying causes and possible solutions that would limit the outbreaks in this overlooked category of population. It is the authors' hope that raising awareness on this matter would encourage more studies to be conducted, considering the fact that there is little information available on the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on nursing homes. Establishing national databases that would register all nursing home residents and their health status would be of great help in the future not only for managing the ongoing pandemic but also for assessing the level of care that is needed in this particularly fragile setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health organization in early March 2020. The disease typically presents with viral respiratory symptoms that could progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome. Emerging evidence suggests different possible dermatologic manifestations of COVID-19, including: acral lesions (pernio-like, pseudo-chillblain), vesicular eruptions, macular and papular exanthema, urticaria, livedoid, purpuric and petechial rashes. However, specific skin manifestations of the COVID-19 disease have not yet been clearly established and the relationship between the appearance of skin lesions and SARS-CoV-2 infection is still unclear. These highly variable skin changes could represent a direct consequence of the viral infection, an immunological response to viral nucleotides, adverse reactions to drugs frequently used for the treatment of COVID-19, or other disorders. In a global effort to comprehend the exact cutaneous features of COVID-19, several international dermatological societies have initiated nationwide studies to analyze COVID-19 cutaneous manifestations during this pandemic. This paper represents a literature review of the scientific data available on the clinical characteristics and symptoms of the cutaneous manifestations associated with COVID-19. Such findings are extremely useful in establishing if dermatological manifestations in COVID-19 patients could harbor a diagnostic significance and subsequently be used as prognostic factors for outcomes of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]