Kidney diseases in the time of COVID-19: major challenges to patient care

The late Colombian Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote "Love in the Time of Cholera," a complex depiction of the struggle to love during an infectious epidemic (1). In the novel, a rational, responsible physician devoted to science is working to eradicate cholera but is pitted against a passionate, emotional, and impulsive man who wins some of the personal battles. Our current battle against the novel coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 will require both rational medical science as well as passionate and rapid risk-taking. The current COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone but presents profound consequences for patients with kidney disease, health care providers, and biomedical researchers. In this Viewpoint, I will discuss a number of kidney-specific aspects of COVID-19 infection, noting therapeutic and basic research opportunities. An early Chinese report characterized hemodialysis patients from January 14, 2020, the day the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in the hemodialysis center at Wuhan University, to February 17, 2020.