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Decreases in cardiac catheter laboratory workload during the COVID‐19 level 4 lockdown in New Zealand
Author(s) -
Elliott John M.,
Crozier Ian G.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
internal medicine journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.596
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1445-5994
pISSN - 1444-0903
DOI - 10.1111/imj.14922
Subject(s) - medicine , covid-19 , percutaneous coronary intervention , myocardial infarction , emergency medicine , pandemic , workload , cardiology , catheter , outbreak , surgery , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , computer science , operating system
An increase in coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) infections prompted Level 4 lockdown throughout New Zealand from 25 March 2020. We have investigated trends in coronary and electrophysiology (EP) procedures before and during this lockdown. The number of acute procedures for ST elevation myocardial infarction remained stable. In contrast, the number of in‐patient angiograms and percutaneous intervention procedures fell by 53% compared with the previous 4 weeks in 2020 and by 56% compared with the corresponding period in 2019. Further study is required to determine the reasons for these trends.