COVID-19 first emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and since then a tsunami of infection has spread across the world. This is an unprecedented challenge for health care around the planet.

SAR-COV-2 is a novel virus that is responsible for COVID-19 and its origin is believed to be from bats, and the animal-to-human transmission occurred in a wet market in Wuhan, China.

This virus is more contagious than previously seen corona viruses such as SARS and MERS and therefore the spread has been more efficient. There is also asymptomatic spread, which makes mitigation of spread significantly difficult.

In this special edition of Critical Care Nursing Quarterly, we have outlined the epidemiology, pathophysiology, and transmission of the disease.

We also discuss therapeutics and supportive management of the critically ill patients with COVID-19.

We also discuss the challenges surrounding personal protection equipment as well as our experience with institutional response to such a global pandemic.

This edition has been a collaboration between frontline nurses, nursing administrators, and infectious disease and pulmonary critical care physicians.

Every author in this edition has been involved in the COVID-19 response from being on the front line to administrative leadership and has been working around the clock.

I want to thank everyone who contributed to this edition in such a short period of time.

We are truly all in this together.

-Tariq Cheema, MD, FCCP, MMM

Issue Editor