This letter examines healthcare worker deaths by category and medical speciality during the COVID-19 emergency in Italy, and underlines factors that may have contributed to the elevated number of fatalities among healthcare personnel. These data are now available because Italy was the first western country to be severely affected. These are matters for urgent discussion as development goes forward.
Editor
During the last three months, COVID-
19 pandemic had led to a serious backlog
of operations globally, and plans for
restarting operation are imperative1-3.
Recommendations for surgical activities
were studied, aiming to protect the
surgical staff from being infected4,5. In
the meantime, it is also important to
give attention to the surgeon’s personal
feeling during work. We conducted
a survey to investigate global surgical
practices during the COVID-19
pandemic6, and the surgeon’s personal
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