Identifying causal role of COVID-19 in immunopsychiatry models

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has rapidly evolved into one of the most serious public health crises in recent history. As COVID-19 continues to spread globally, the field of immunopsychiatry is correspondingly adjusting our studies while maintaining high-quality research standards (Holmes et al., 2020). This goal necessitates significant flexibility given the gaps in our knowledge base and the quickly developing shifts in available information. The primary obstacle in many parts of the world is the inability to precisely discern the proportion of our samples that have been or are currently infected with COVID-19, a problem compounded by the high rates of asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic presentations (Furukawa et al., 2020). Currently, without widespread testing, the field must creatively adopt strategies to properly assess and then account for COVID-19.