Background

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is likely to have significant implications for the cardiovascular care of patients. In most countries, containment has already started (on 17 March 2020 in France), and self-quarantine and social distancing are reducing viral contamination and saving lives. However, these considerations may only be the tip of the iceberg; most resources are dedicated to the struggle against COVID-19, and this unprecedented situation may compromise the management of patients admitted with cardiovascular conditions.

Aim

We aimed to assess the effect of COVID-19 containment measures on cardiovascular admissions in France.

Methods

We asked nine major cardiology centres to give us an overview of admissions to their nine intensive cardiac care units for acute myocardial infarction or acute heart failure, before and after containment measures.

Results

Before containment (02–16 March 2020), the nine participating intensive cardiac care units admitted 4.8 ± 1.6 patients per day, versus 2.6 ± 1.5 after containment (17–22 March 2020) (rank-sum test P = 0.0006).

Conclusions

We confirm here, for the first time, a dramatic drop in the number of cardiovascular admissions after the establishment of containment. Many hypotheses might explain this phenomenon, but we feel it is time raise the alarm about the risk for patients presenting with acute cardiovascular disease, who may suffer from lack of attention, leading to severe consequences (an increase in the number of ambulatory myocardial infarctions, mechanical complications of myocardial infarction leading to an increase in the number of cardiac arrests, unexplained deaths, heart failure, etc.). Similar consequences can be feared for all acute situations, beyond the cardiovascular disease setting.

中文翻译：

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一列火车可能隐藏另一列：由于 COVID-19 大流行，急性心血管疾病可能会被忽视。

背景

2019 年冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 可能对患者的心血管护理产生重大影响。在大多数国家/地区，遏制措施已经开始（2020 年 3 月 17 日在法国），自我隔离和保持社交距离正在减少病毒污染并挽救生命。然而，这些考虑可能只是冰山一角；大多数资源都用于抗击 COVID-19，这种前所未有的情况可能会危及对因心血管疾病入院的患者的管理。

目的

我们旨在评估 COVID-19 遏制措施对法国心血管疾病入院的影响。

方法

我们要求九个主要的心脏病学中心向我们概述他们九个重症监护病房因急性心肌梗死或急性心力衰竭而入院的情况，在采取遏制措施之前和之后。

结果

在收容前（2020 年 3 月 2 日至 16 日），九个参与的心脏重症监护病房每天收治 4.8 ± 1.6 名患者，而收容后（2020 年 3 月 17 日至 22 日）为 2.6 ± 1.5 名患者（秩和检验 P = 0.0006 ）  。

结论

我们在这里首次确认，在建立收容措施后因心血管疾病入院的人数急剧下降。许多假设可以解释这一现象，但我们认为是时候对患有急性心血管疾病的患者发出警告，他们可能因缺乏关注而导致严重后果（门诊心肌梗死数量增加，心肌梗死的机械并发症导致心脏骤停、不明原因死亡、心力衰竭等次数增加）。对于心血管疾病以外的所有急性情况，都可能会担心类似的后果。