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Background: Within a few months coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread around the world. Some studies showed a significant reduction in medical consultations. Due to new discussions about restrictions in the case of rising COVID-19 case numbers, this study investigated the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on surgical emergencies at the Rostock University Medical Center and compared the results to the years before. Material and methods: The aim of the study was to compare the case numbers of the surgical emergency department of the Rostock University Medical Center from the period 2020 and 2021 to the years before (2018, 2019). Furthermore, the consequences of COVID-19 case numbers for the case numbers of the surgical emergency department were investigated. Results: A total of 74,936 patient cases could be included in this study. The results showed a significant reduction of surgical emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic (p < 0.001). There was a significant negative correlation with the COVID-19 case numbers (p < 0.001). The restrictions of the government showed a direct influence on COVID-19 case numbers and emergency visits. Conclusion: The results showed a correlation of COVID-19 case numbers with the case numbers of the surgical emergency department. Due to difficult workforce planning during a pandemic, this can be important information for workforce management in similar future events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a multi-server queue with K priority classes. In this system, customers of the P highest priorities ( P< K) can preempt customers with lower priorities, ejecting them from service and sending them back into the queue. Service times are assumed exponential with the same mean for all classes. The Laplace–Stieltjes transforms of waiting times are calculated explicitly and the Laplace–Stieltjes transforms of sojourn times are provided in an implicit form via a system of functional equations. In both cases, moments of any order can be easily calculated. Specifically, we provide formulae for the steady state means and the second moments of waiting times for all priority classes. We also study some approximations of sojourn-time distributions via their moments. In a practical part of our paper, we discuss the use of mixed priorities for different types of Service Level Agreements, including an example based on a real scheduling problem of IT support teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]