Dramatic drops in ER visits likely led to uncounted deaths
This is part of our Coronavirus Update series in which Harvard specialists in epidemiology, infectious disease, economics, politics, and other disciplines offer insights into what the latest developments in the COVID-19 outbreak may bring. Hospital officials, anticipating a surge of COVID-19 cases, urged deferring routine, nonemergency care so doctors, nurses, and other personnel could focus on pandemic patients. But a new study from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center suggests that too many, either to avoid straining medical resources or fearing infection at the hospital, may have put off emergency care for issues like heart attacks and strokes, at a cost of lives. Dhruv Kazi, director of Beth Israel’s Cardiac Critical Care Unit and a Harvard Medical School faculty member, and associate director of the hospital’s Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology, spoke with the Gazette about the study’s findings of a 33 percent drop in heart attack patients and 58...