3.5.3. Shutdown in Phases: Different Consequences for Different Organs

A phased approach to new transplant activity during the COVID-19 pandemic has been proposed by Kumar et al. [25]. In this article, a reduction of 25%, 50% or 75% in transplant activity depends on the risk tolerance, hospital capacity and degree of virus activity in the jurisdiction [25]. This has different consequences for each type of organ. For example, a 25% reduction in transplant activity corresponds to priority level "elective", which means that there will be no living donor kidney transplantation, but non-urgent lung transplantation activity will be continued. A 100% reduction of the health system occurs if facilities are overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, with no ICU capacity. In that situation, severe shortages of health care personnel lead to a halt of all living and deceased donor transplant activity.

The same authors also propose a classification of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% reduction in ambulatory transplant checkups, with the corresponding levels of medical service at the transplant center.
