In a normal March and April, the Seattle Fire Department receives roughly 30 to 40 calls from people having heart attacks. But this spring those calls were cut in half, to around 15.
Health officials aren't celebrating.
In fact, the trend could be a troubling side effect of the coronavirus pandemic, said the fire department's medical director, Dr. Michael Sayre.
"We're concerned that people are not calling 911 for a variety of reasons, maybe because they think that it's not safe to go to a hospital," he said.
In other words, it could be that people having heart attacks are not seeking treatment out of fear of catching the virus in a hospital.
Another concerning trend, Sayre said, is that emergency responders are arriving at more scenes where a patient has already died, further indicating that people may be waiting longer to seek medical help.
Those "deceased on arrival" calls are up about 12 percent this year over last.
"It's possible that some of the people have delayed too long and have just died at home," Sayre said.
Doctors at some Seattle hospitals have also noted a sharp decline in heart attack patients.
Since the arrival of COVID-19 in Washington, the number of people being admitted to Harborview and UW Medical Center for heart attacks and stent procedures has dropped by about 50 percent, Dr. Ravi Hira of the Cardiac Care Outcomes Assessment Program told KNKX last month.
While some hospitals have seen a similar drop in the number of stroke patients, the fire department hasn't seen that in 911 calls, Sayre said. He said he hopes to look into why, since trends in strokes and heart attacks usually mirror each other.
Sayre, who's also an emergency room doctor at UW, said hospitals are equipped to safely treat patients in emergency rooms, and fear of the coronavirus is not a reason to hesitate to call 911.
"We're hyper-focused on reducing the risk to everybody, including ourselves," he said.
