Careful return to elective orthopaedic surgery in an acute hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic shows no increase in morbidity or mortality.

Aims: Elective orthopaedic surgery was cancelled early in the COVID-19 pandemic and is currently running at significantly reduced capacity in most institutions. This has resulted in a significant backlog to treatment, with some hospitals projecting that waiting times for arthroplasty is three times the pre-COVID-19 duration. There is concern that the patient group requiring arthroplasty are often older and have more medical comorbidities-the same group of patients advised they are at higher risk of mortality from catching COVID-19.