The "misfortune" of being a COVID-19 negative patient during the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 pandemic has obviously affected patients' behavior towards seeking medical help as well as physicians' decision in the management of emergencies. Our recent experience as surgeons at a COVID-19 referral hospital revealed cases which share an alerting characteristic: the delay in appropriate management. Unfortunately for COVID-19 negative patients a "coronacentric" health system has been adopted. In view of measures applied to avoid spread of the disease, a significant delay in patients' presentation as well as in their in-hospital management is observed. We present cases where delay in appropriate management affected the patients' outcome and underline the fact that balancing between COVID-19 safety measures and a patient who needs urgent treatment can be very challenging and stressful.