Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on orthopaedic and traumatological care in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has significantly affected society, especially healthcare systems worldwide. The aim of this retrospective study is to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on orthopaedic and trauma healthcare at the largest university hospital in the Czech Republic. The evaluated periods were in accordance with three waves of the disease and three respective lockdowns. To correlate the results, we evaluated the number of patients (inpatients and outpatients) treated in the same period in the last 3 years before the pandemic. The number of orthopaedic outpatients during the lockdown period decreased by 54.12% (p = 0.002), 42.88% (p