Introduction

The new coronaviruses outbreak caused by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) originated from the Chinese region of Wuhan in the last quarter of 2019 affected approximately 75 million people all around the world and caused over 1.6 million deaths [1]. COVID-19 is a highly contagious viral infection and its main routes for transmission are the person to person contact, touch, and aerosol. While it has detrimental effects on respiratory and cardiovascular systems it also can be found in digestive and urinary systems. The frequently experienced symptoms are fever, dry cough, dyspnea, fatigue, and loss of appetite [2]. With an ongoing effort, several researchers focused on investigating a drug or vaccine to end the pandemic. Currently, despite there is no drug specifically approved for COVID-19 treatment, there has been more than one vaccine from different nations to prevent the virus spread.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, virology research constituted less than 2% of all biomedical research. But this rate has been increased to 10-20% which represents the incredible adaptation potential of the research community. By the way, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a massive influx of publication not only by virologists and infectious health specialists but also by almost all medical disciplines. To facilitate early dissemination of knowledge prior to any peer-review, many articles have been uploaded preprint services [3]. It is not realistic to assume that a qualified and strict peer-review process could compensate for the high number of submissions. Moreover, someone must be aware that those non-peer-reviewed materials could be picked up by the media and spread to the population.

Social distancing and transmission issues have also led to travel and social restrictions that resulted in many trials to be suspended or delaying in patient recruitment [4]. It is wellknown that generally large-scale randomized trials were not set up in time in the previous pandemic. However, the use of modern information technologies in combination with oldfashioned randomization might lead to the rapid gain of viable results nowadays. Countries might be encouraged to establish clinical-trial networks to activate and arrange large multi-center studies [5].

COVID-19 pandemic deeply affects not only urological patient care but also urology residency education. Work hours modified and residences redeployed to serve in pandemic services in many countries. This situation came along with the problem of interrupted urologic training and unmet minimal case requirements. Generally, online learning curricula have been well-adopted by urologists. However, recent studies have been shown that such changes caused emotionally and physically stressful situations for trainees [6].

In conclusion, it is obvious that Coronavirus will continue to be in our daily life for a while. Thus, maintaining research and education is vital in all disciplines of medicine. Contributing to the scientific area with respect to essential requirements and ethics will support the development of all humanity in this crisis. Hereby, We would like to congratulate you on the first issue of your journal planned to be released in such a difficult time and wish you to have significant contributions to the field of urology in a strictly scientific manner.

Sincerely yours.

Reference

1) COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic Worldometer n.d. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ (accessed December 17, 2020).

2) Jin P, Park H, Jung S, Kim J. Challenges in Urology during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Urol Int 2020:1–14. https://doi.org/10.1159/000512880.

3) Harper L, Kalfa N, Beckers GMA, Kaefer M, Nieuwhof-Leppink AJ, Fossum M, et al. The impact of COVID-19 on research. J Pediatr Urol 2020;16:715–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpurol.2020.07.002.

4) Upadhaya S, Yu JX, Oliva C, Hooton M, Hodge J, Hubbard-Lucey VM. Impact of COVID-19 on oncology clinical trials. Nat Rev Drug Discov 2020;19:376–7. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41573-020-00093-1.

5) Tikkinen KAO, Malekzadeh R, Schlegel M, Rutanen J, Glasziou P. COVID-19 clinical trials: learning from exceptions in the research chaos. Nat Med 2020;26:1671–2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-1077-z.

6) Smigelski M, Movassaghi M, Small A. Urology Virtual Education Programs During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Curr Urol Rep 2020;21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11934-020-01004-y.