Key Points:
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted medical care in 2019, including the number of non-COVID-19 related admissions. Moreover, certain comorbidities render COVID-19 patients more susceptible to poor outcomes, e.g., hospitalization, death, compared to patients without comorbidities. This paper investigated outcomes for patients with ischemic stroke admitted to hospital pre-pandemic in 2019 and post-pandemic in 2020. Although there was an initial drop in admissions for ischemic stroke patients in 2020, levels increased back to 2019 pre-pandemic levels by July 2020. However, COVID-19 patients with ischemic stroke were more likely to die in the hospital, advocating for particular attention to this subset of patients.
