Triaging urological surgeries to cope with the coronavirus-19 pandemic.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to strains on hospital resources and difficulties in safely and effectively triaging surgical procedures. In this article, we discuss the important considerations for triaging urologic surgeries during a global pandemic, mitigating factors on how to perform surgeries safely, and general guidelines for specific surgeries. RECENT FINDINGS: Many urological procedures have been cut back due to the pandemic, with benign disease states being most affected whereas oncology cases affected least. Current recommendations in urology triage life-threatening conditions, or conditions that may lead to life-threatening ailments as a priority for treatment during the pandemic. Additionally, published recommendations have been put forth recommending all surgical patients be screened for COVID-19 to protect staff, prevent disease dissemination, and to educate patients on worse outcomes that can occur if infected with COVID-19 in the postoperative period. SUMMARY: COVID-19 has caused worldwide shortages of healthcare resources and increased the need to ethically triage resources to adequately treat the urologic community. These resource limitations have led to increased wait times and cancellations of many urology surgeries that are considered 'elective'.

Fear about adverse effect on fertility is a major cause of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States.

Although COVID-19 vaccine access has increased nationwide, vaccination rates have been slow-moving, with many studies showing significant vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. We conducted an online survey using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to identify reasons for vaccine hesitancy among unvaccinated adults between June 30 and July 1, 2021. We found that 58% of unvaccinated respondents were worried about unknown long-term adverse effects. Of these, 41% believed that the COVID-19 vaccines can negatively impact reproductive health and or fertility, and 38% were unsure of the effects on fertility. Our study demonstrates that fear regarding COVID-19 vaccine adverse effects and belief that they can negatively impact fertility is a major cause of vaccine hesitancy in the United States. We identified that urban residents, married individuals, those born outside the U.S., those with health insurance, and people with higher education and income greater than $100,000 felt that the vaccine would affect fertility more than their counterparts did. Finally, we found that 48% of unvaccinated respondents cited 'more information and research conducted on the COVID-19 vaccines' as the action that would most encourage vaccine uptake.