Corona Virus Disease 19 (CoViD-19) impact on cardiovascular disease in a non-CoViD-19 emergency setting

Emergency Departments (ED) are the front-line setting in fighting the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Italy was the first Western country to face a huge number of Coronavirus Disease (CoViD-19) patients, resulting in a major mortality increase as compared to the previous years. Numerous restrictive measures were applied to avoid the collapse of the national health system, advertised as the “stay at home” campaign. To study the trend of access to ED during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, we compared the discharges between March 11 and April 10, 2020 to the same interval in 2019 and 2018. Patients of all ages are cared for at these hospitals, from birth to old age. During the study period, a median of 556 Covid-19 patients were hospitalized daily in Apulia.