Reviewing COVID-19 from an anesthesiologist’s perspective in 2022: JA symposium

The COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing as of September 2022. Since January 2020 when the first case was reported in Japan, the medical community faced a variety of problems both domestically and internationally. It is meaningful to review the impact of COVID-19 from an anesthesiologist’s perspective to clarify our policy for future infectious disease outbreaks. In this year’s Journal of Anesthesia (JA) symposium, five experts who were deeply involved in the COVID-19 response reviewed the past 2.5 years and made recommendations for potential future pandemics. Anesthesiologists are specialists in airway management and their role in intubating patients with COVID-19 has received much attention. However, they have also played an important backup role in intensive care as critical care physicians and must be more involved in critical care in regular (non-pandemic) times to properly fulfill this role. It is especially important for the Japan Society of Anesthesiologists and JA to quickly disseminate accurate information on unknown infectious diseases to the medical community and wider society. Therefore, it is important to promptly publish papers that are quality-assured through peer review.