LETTER TO THE EDITOR To the Editor: On December 31, 2019, China reported a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown etiology caused by a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) associ- ated with respiratory disease to the World Health Organization (WHO), which was later termed COVID-19. As of August 6, 2020, there were 18,614,177 confrmed cases world- wide since the beginning of the epi- demic and 702,642 deaths (WHO, 2020). Te literature shows that age and some chronic diseases (e.g., cardio- vascular, respiratory, hypertension, diabetes) seem to be linked to the pathogenesis of COVID-19 (Yang et al., 2020). Hypertension is prevalent in approximately 17% of patients with COVID-19, whereas diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and respira- tory system diseases are prevalent in 8%, 5%, and 2% of cases, respectively (Yang et al., 2020). At this time, when the major- ity of afected nations are entering a phase of coexistence with the virus (Phase 2), nurses could be one of the central points for protection of older adults. Nurses have the knowledge and skills to promote educational projects for the population dedicated to the correct use of individual safe- ty devices; correct behavior, such as hand washing, cleaning, and disin- fection of high contact surfaces; and social distancing (Di Pasquale, 2020). Nurses are also able to promote cam- paigns for fu vaccination for people at risk and health care workers, as indicated by the American College of Cardiology (Di Pasquale, 2020). In addition, telephone triage and telemedicine (Tolone et al., 2020) can be implemented to identify in- fected patients with comorbidities that put them at higher risk, as well as to monitor older adults living alone and those afected by the diseases in- dicated above. Nurses can also iden- tify cases of “COVID-19 chameleon” (Nickel & Bingisser, 2020), defned as patients who are older and tend to present with nonspecifc symptoms, such as weakness and fatigue. Nurses also monitor behaviors that could en- danger frail older adults (Casanova et al., 2015), and measure biomarkers of cardiac damage that can help identify patients with possible cardiac lesions to predict the worsening clinical picture of COVID-19 (Di Pasquale, 2020). Nurses should also be involved in the preparation of programs and plans to ensure that they are ready to avoid or respond to more widespread virus cir- culation (Johnson et al., 2020). All of the above-mentioned mea- sures should be considered to prevent a possible second peak of COVID-19 that would once again put health care systems all over the world in crisis. REFERENCES Casanova, N., Bagnasco, N., Bonetti, L., & Sasso, L. (2015). Nurses’ attitudes to- wards nutritional care and malnutrition in hospitalised older people: A survey in the Liguria Region [article in Italian]. Pro- fessioni Infermieristiche, 68(4), 219–226. https://doi.org/10.7429/pi.2015.684219 PMID:26752313 Di Pasquale, G. (2020). Coronavirus COVID-19: Quali implicazioni per la car- diologia? Giornale Italiano Di Cardiologia, 21(4), 243–245. Johnson, H. C., Gossner, C. M., Colzani, E., Kinsman, J., Alexakis, L., Beauté, J., Würz, A., Tsolova, S., Bundle, N., & Ekdahl, K. (2020). Potential scenarios for the progres- sion of a COVID-19 epidemic in the Eu- ropean Union and the European Economic Area, March 2020. Eurosurveillance, 25(9), 2000202. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560- 7917.ES.2020.25.9.2000202 PMID:32156332 Nickel, C. H., & Bingisser, R. (2020). Mim- ics and chameleons of COVID-19. Swiss Medical Weekly, 150, w20231. https:// doi.org/10.4414/smw.2020.20231 PMID:32202647 Tolone, S., Gambardella, C., Brusciano, L., Genio, G., Lucido, F. S., & Docimo, L. (2020). Telephonic triage before surgical ward admission and telemedicine during COVID-19 outbreak in Italy: Efective and easy procedures to reduce in-hospital positivity. International Journal of Surgery, 78, 123–125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ijsu.2020.04.060 PMID:32360932 World Health Organization. (2020). Coronavi- rus disease (COVID-2019) situation reports. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/ novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports Yang, J., Zheng, Y., Gou, X., Pu, K., Chen, Z., Guo, Q., Ji, R., Wang, H., Wang, Y., & Zhou, Y. (2020). Prevalence of comor- bidities and its efects in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 94, 91–95. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.03.017 PMID:32173574 Debora Rosa, PhD, RN Istituto Auxologico Italiano IRCCS San Luca Hospital Milan, Italy Giulia Villa, PhD, RN IRCCS San Raffaele Institute Milan, Italy Serena Togni, PhD, RN Foundation IRCCS National Cancer Institute Milan, Italy How to Protect Older Adults With Comorbidities During Phase 2 of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Nurses’ Contributions 7 Journal of Gerontological Nursing | Vol 46 | No 9 | 2020