Stroke: Extended time from stroke to hospital during COVID-19

The current 2019 coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) is a global public health crisis that disrupts emergency health servicesRecently, researchers in the journal Stroke, an authoritative journal on cardiovascular disease, published a research paper aimed at clarifying whether COVID-19 caused delays in stroke and affected the provision of acute stroke treatment services at the Hong Kong Comprehensive Stroke Centrein the 60 days since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Hong Kong (COVID-19: 23 January 2020- 24 March 2020), the researchers reviewed all patients admitted to the hospital through acute stroke in Queen's Hospital of Hong Kong with a short-term cerebral ischemic attack and strokeThe researchers compared the time between stroke seizures and hospital visits to patients admitted to the hospital in the same period in 2019 (COVID-19: 23 January 2019 to 24 March 2019)researchers compared 73 patients during COVID-19 with 89 patients before COVID-19There was no significant difference between the two groups in age, sex, vascular risk factors and stroke severity (P.05)Compared to before COVID-19, the duration of stroke attack struck during COVID-19 was approximately 1 hour (154 vs95 minutes, P.12), and the proportion of individuals with a stroke attack to treatment time of less than 4.5 hours was significantly reduced (55% vs72%, P.024)Although there was no increase in the number of referrals for transient cerebral ischemic episodes, there was a significant decrease in the number of cases of transient ischemic attacks visiting the hospital during COVID-19 (4% vs16%, P.016)However, there was no difference in the path of stroke and treatment time in the two groups (all P.0.05)thus shows that in the early control phase of COVID-19, stroke attacks to the hospital time has been extended, and within 4.5 hours arrived at the hospital for short-term cerebral ischemic attack patients significantly reducedPublic education on stroke should continue to be strengthened during the COVID-19 pandemic