On March 11th, 2020 the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. The infection, transmitted by 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCov), was first discovered in December 2019, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, and then rapidly spread worldwide. Italy was early and severely involved, with a critical spread of the infection and a very high number of victims. Person-to-person spread mainly occurs via respiratory droplets and contact. The median incubation period is 5 days. The spectrum of respiratory symptoms may range from mild to severe, strictly depending on the age of the patient and the underlying comorbidities.In children COVID-19 related disease is less frequent and less aggressive. In Italy 1% of positive cases are under 18 years of age, and no deaths have been recorded before 29 years of age. For patients affected by rheumatic disease, despite the concerns related to the imbalance of their immune response and the effect of immunosuppressive treatments, there are still few data to understand the real consequences of this infection. Major scientific societies have issued recommendations to help rheumatologists in caring their patients. Interestingly, some of the drugs mostly used by rheumatologists appear to be promising in critical COVID-19 infected patients, where the hyperinflammation and cytokine storm seem to drive to the multiorgan failure.Pediatric rheumatologists are expected to play a supporting role in this new front of COVID-19 pandemic, both as general pediatricians treating infected children, and as rheumatologists taking care of their rheumatic patients, as well as offering their experience in the possible alternative use of immunomodulatory drugs.

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COVID-19 以及儿科风湿病学家应该了解的内容：来自受影响严重的国家的评论。

2020 年 3 月 11 日，世界卫生组织宣布 COVID-19 为全球大流行病。这种感染由 2019 新型冠状病毒 (2019-nCov) 传播，于 2019 年 12 月在湖北省武汉市首次发现，随后迅速在全球传播。意大利很早就受到了严重影响，感染蔓延严重，受害者人数非常多。人际传播主要通过呼吸道飞沫和接触发生。潜伏期中位数为 5 天。呼吸道症状的范围可能从轻微到严重，严格取决于患者的年龄和潜在的合并症。在儿童中，COVID-19 相关疾病的发生率较低，侵袭性也较弱。在意大利，1%的阳性病例年龄在18岁以下，29岁之前没有死亡记录。对于风湿病患者来说，尽管人们担心其免疫反应失衡和免疫抑制治疗的效果，但仍然缺乏数据来了解这种感染的真正后果。主要科学协会已发布建议来帮助风湿病学家护理患者。有趣的是，风湿病学家主要使用的一些药物似乎对重症 COVID-19 感染患者有希望，这些患者的过度炎症和细胞因子风暴似乎会导致多器官衰竭。儿科风湿病学家预计将在这一新领域发挥支持作用。 COVID-19 大流行期间，既作为普通儿科医生治疗受感染的儿童，又作为风湿病学家照顾风湿病患者，并提供可能替代使用免疫调节药物的经验。