Medical Physics during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In Latin America, the first case of the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 disease, was on February 26, when Brazil confirmed the first case in Sao Paulo, followed by Mexico and Ecuador, whose dates were February 28 and 29, 2020, respectively. As of December 2020, more than 13.5 million cases of COVID-19 have been registered in Latin America and the Caribbean. Cancer represents the second leading cause of death in the Latin American population. All patients needing surgery were isolated for 14 days before their operation and two days before, they were hospitalized and tested for COVID-19. Medical physics plays a fundamental role during the pandemic, such as guaranteeing diagnostic quality, especially in computed tomography, the gold standard for evaluating patients with COVID-19, as well as guaranteeing and maintaining the quality of patient treatment with radiotherapy and nuclear medicine.