• Adeel A Butt, Aftab M Azad, Anand B Kartha, Naseer A Masoodi, Roberto Bertollini, and Abdul-Badi Abou-Samra.
• Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar; Weill Cornell Medical College, Doha Qatar and New York, New York.
• J Emerg Med. 2020 Nov 1; 59 (5): 730-734.

BackgroundThere are scant data regarding the change in volume and acuity of patients presenting to emergency departments (EDs) after Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), compared with the pre-COVID-19 era.ObjectiveTo determine ED volumes and triage acuity prior to and after COVID-19.MethodsWe determined the volume of patients presenting to four large EDs affiliated with general, cardiac, cancer, and obstetrics hospitals, and the acuity of presenting illness (using the Canadian Triage Acuity Scale [CTAS]) for March and April 2020 and compared them with the same months in 2019 and January 2020. Together, these facilities see over 80% of the ED visits in Qatar. The first COVID-19 patient in Qatar was diagnosed on February 29, 2020.ResultsA total of 192,157 ED visits were recorded during the study period. There was a 20-43% overall drop in number of ED visits, with significant variability across hospitals. The Heart Hospital experienced the sharpest decline (33-89%), and the National Center for Cancer Care and Research experienced the least decline in volumes. The decline was observed across all CTAS levels, with the largest decline observed in individuals presenting with CTAS 1 and 2 (26-69% decline month by month). No increase in overall number of deaths or crude mortality rate was observed in the COVID-19 era, according to national statistics.ConclusionsSharp declines in ED visits and the triage acuity seen in both general and specialty hospitals raise the concern that severely ill patients may not be seeking timely care, and a surge may be expected once current restrictions on movement are lifted.Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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