The SARS-CoV-2, previously named 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), is an enveloped positive-sense singlestranded RNA virus causing bilateral pneumonia with respiratory distress syndrome and was first described in late December 2019 in Wuhan city, China.1 Since coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has developed into a pandemic, some forms of contagion mitigation, borrowed from China, have been gradually adopted in other countries and, first, in Italy.2 However, despite recommendation from the World Health Organization (WHO), no agreement has been reached on appropriate preventive actions and therefore differences do exist from nation to nation.3 Most health systems appear to be hit hard by two problems: the availability of hospital beds, especially those with intensive care units (ICUs), and an increasing number of infections between health personnel thus affecting the workforce and morale of staff members. Thus, as previously described in China, a reduction or even a suspension of elective surgery in all affected countries is expected.4,5 To counteract this phenomenon, our hospital along with surgical teams created new pathways and guidelines both for patients and healthcare professionals to offer the best level of care in order to limit the detrimental effect on surgical volume caused by the pandemic. We hereby describe in detail our results.
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