Protecting High-Risk Cardiac Patients During the COVID-19 Outbreak

In the effort to face the ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, which caused severe pneumonia requiring intensive care unit (ICU) admission in up to 15% of confirmed cases so far, many hospitals in Italy are setting up new ICUs, stopping nonurgent admissions, limiting the access to emergency rooms and wards, and providing separate pathways for suspected COVID-19 and other diseases. In parallel, it is mandatory to continue ensuring the provision of non-postponable treatments (eg, primary percutaneous coronary interventions or urgent/emergency cardiac surgical procedures). The particularly high mortality rates recorded in Italy among COVID-19 patients (apparently more than 9% at the time of writing) suggest that the actual number of people infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) may be much higher than that of confirmed cases, with a substantial number of asymptomatic or minimally/mildly symptomatic infections