Lessons Learned From the Pandemic: A Retrospective Analysis of the Impact of COVID-19 in the Routine of a Reference Center for Spine Surgery

This work showed the steady volume of surgical activity during the pandemic in a tertiary center. This phenomenon happened largely due to the change in profile in surgical cases. Non-elective cases became more frequent, and elective patients were sparse, probably demonstrating the necessity to deal with cases that otherwise would be treated in community hospitals. Despite this fact, the complication rate decreased during the pandemic, and the mortality rate stayed stable. As the application of the vaccine in the Canadian population, elective spine surgery activity levels were successfully restored.