The COVID‐19 pandemic is seriously affecting the lives of billions of people around the world, especially in the healthcare systems [1]. Although the impact of the pandemic on health services is mostly negative, there is still a chance to use this situation as an opportunity for positive changes.

Neurosonological examination involves direct contact between the patient and the sonographer, often for several tens of minutes. Thus, this examination should be included in procedures with a potentially high risk of COVID‐19 transmission.

To prevent the spread of viral infection, the Management Group of the Scientific Panel on Neurosonology of the European Academy of Neurology [2] and the European Society of Neurosonology and Cerebral Hemodynamics (ESNCH) [3] published their recommendations for neurosonology laboratories and the performance of neurovascular ultrasound, based on general international ultrasound/neuroimaging investigation guidelines during the pandemic [1, 4-8].

In contrast to elective neurosonology examination, the acute examination cannot be postponed, especially in acute stroke patients. To diminish the risk of viral infection transmission during neurosonological examination, Baracchini et al. are providing practical recommendations of the ESNCH for the performance of neurovascular ultrasound investigations with the aim of protecting both patients and ultrasound providers [9]. The recommended detailed pre‐hospital and intra‐hospital assessments, regular effective cleaning of ultrasound equipment and using compatible disinfectants after each patient are necessary to diminish the spread of viral infection. The indication for neurosonological examination becomes even more crucial now.

Nevertheless, the correct assessment of neurosonological examination is not only a question of image evaluation as in other neuroimaging methods but it is ‘state of the art’, highly dependent on sonographer experience [10]. Thus, hands‐on courses are necessary to provide adequate education and practice for neurosonographers. The COVID‐19 pandemic has also seriously affected these educational activities. It is an urgent challenge for authorities (ESNCH, European Academy of Neurology Scientific Panel on Neurosonology and Neurosonology Speciality Group of the World Federation of Neurology) to create a suitable, safe, effective and modern system of neurosonology education able to protect participants but to continuously deliver up‐to‐date neurosonology information.

Facing the COVID‐19 pandemic, currently various new digital educational concepts are being developed for distance learning and we should therefore share these broad experiences for future courses, but this is yet another demanding task for the neurosonology community. It is an ultimate goal to increase the use of interactive video conferencing in remote neurosonology education as well as in the delivery of acute stroke care, known as telestroke/teleneurosonology, also feasible and very efficient during the crisis. Among the first steps, sonographers should complete infection control and protection training using these interactive remote modalities.

The major goal of all relevant recommendations of neurosonology societies or authorities is to protect both patients and sonographers but keeping great attention on stroke as an emergency condition always strictly adhering to treatment guidelines for patients to ensure appropriate stroke care. The introduction of published recommendations on clinical practice may also mitigate the negative effects of new pandemics in the future.

COVID-19 大流行正在严重影响全球数十亿人的生活，尤其是在医疗保健系统中 [ 1 ]。尽管大流行对卫生服务的影响大多是负面的，但仍有机会利用这种情况作为积极改变的机会。

神经超声检查涉及患者和超声医师之间的直接接触，通常持续数十分钟。因此，该检查应包含在 COVID-19 传播潜在高风险的程序中。

为防止病毒感染的传播，欧洲神经病学会 [ 2 ] 神经超声学科学小组管理组和欧洲神经超声学和脑血流动力学学会 (ESNCH) [ 3 ] 发布了他们对神经超声学实验室和性能的建议神经血管超声检查，基于大流行期间的一般国际超声/神经影像学调查指南 [ 1, 4-8 ]。

与选择性神经超声检查相比，急性检查不能推迟，尤其是在急性脑卒中患者中。为了减少神经超声检查期间病毒感染传播的风险，Baracchini等人。正在为 ESNCH 的神经血管超声检查性能提供实用建议，旨在保护患者和超声提供者 [ 9 ]。推荐的详细的院前和院内评估、定期有效清洁超声设备以及在每位患者之后使用兼容的消毒剂对于减少病毒感染的传播是必要的。现在，神经超声检查的指征变得更加重要。

然而，神经超声检查的正确评估不仅是图像评估的问题，与其他神经影像学方法一样，而且是“最先进的”，高度依赖于超声医师的经验 [ 10 ]。因此，动手课程对于为神经超声医师提供充分的教育和实践是必要的。COVID-19 大流行也严重影响了这些教育活动。当局（ESNCH、欧洲神经病学科学委员会神经病学科学小组和世界神经病学联合会神经病学专业组）面临的紧迫挑战是创建一个合适、安全、有效和现代的神经病学教育系统，既能保护参与者，又能持续不断地提供最新的神经超声学信息。

面对 COVID-19 大流行，目前正在为远程学习开发各种新的数字教育概念，因此我们应该为未来的课程分享这些广泛的经验，但这对神经超声学界来说又是一项艰巨的任务。最终目标是增加交互式视频会议在远程神经超声学教育中的使用，以及在急性卒中护理（称为远程卒中/远程神经超声学）中的使用，这在危机期间也是可行且非常有效的。在第一步中，超声医师应使用这些交互式远程模式完成感染控制和保护培训。

神经超声学会或当局的所有相关建议的主要目标是保护患者和超声医师，但要高度重视中风作为紧急情况，始终严格遵守患者的治疗指南，以确保适当的中风护理。引入已发表的临床实践建议也可能减轻未来新流行病的负面影响。