Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on the utilization of acute surgical care in the State of Salzburg, Austria: retrospective, multicenter analysis.

Background: Some medical disciplines have reported a strong decrease of emergencies during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic; however, the effect of the lockdown on general surgery emergencies remains unclear.

Methods: This study is a retrospective, multicenter analysis of general surgery emergency operations performed during the period from 1 March to 15th 2020 lockdown and in the same time period of 2019 in three medical centers providing emergency surgical care to the area Salzburg-North, Austria.

Results: In total 165 emergency surgeries were performed in the study period of 2020 compared to 287 in 2019.