How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Attendance at a Tertiary Orthopedic Center Emergency Department: A Comparison between the First and Second Waves

Italy was the first European country to face the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. The country quickly implemented strategies to contain contagions and re-organize medical resources. We evaluated the COVID-19 effects on the activity of a tertiary-level orthopedic emergency department (ED) during the first and second pandemic waves. We retrospectively collected and compared clinical radiological data of ED admissions during four periods: period A, first pandemic wave; period B, second pandemic wave; period C, three months before the COVID-19 outbreak; period D, same timeframe of the first wave but in 2019. During period A, we found a reduction in ED admissions (-68.2% and -59.9% compared with periods D and C) and a decrease in white codes (non-urgent) (-7.5%) compared with pre-pandemic periods, with a slight increase for all other codes: +6.3% green (urgent, not critical), +0.8% yellow (moderately critical) and +0.3% red (highly urgent, risk of death). We observed an increased rate of fracture diagnosis in period A: +14.9% and +13.3% compared with periods D and C. Our study shows that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a drastic change in the ED patient flow and clinical radiological activity, with a marked reduction in admissions and an increased rate of more severe triage codes and diagnosed fractures.