{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,30]],"date-time":"2025-07-30T16:37:31Z","timestamp":1753893451172,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":14,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,21]],"date-time":"2025-03-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1742515200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Vet. Sci."],"abstract":"<jats:p>The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in early 2020 resulted in a temporary suspension of elective spay and neuter procedures in many low-cost spay\/neuter clinics. In our previous study, we projected a deficit of 2.7 million surgeries performed in high-quality high-volume spay-neuter (HQHVSN) clinics as a result of the shutdown and subsequent inability to recover to pre-pandemic productivity by the end of 2021. The purpose of this follow-up study was to determine whether the clinics subsequently recovered and caught up with the previously delayed procedures. Spay-neuter data were collected from 212 HQHVSN clinics from January 2019 through June 2023. The clinics collectively performed 1,217,240 spay\/neuter surgeries in the pre-COVID baseline year of 2019. The pandemic triggered a reduction of 13% in 2020, 3% in 2021, 6% in 2022, and 1% in the first half of 2023. Analysis of patient data from the same clinics in our previous report revealed that instead of rebounding to pre-pandemic surgery capacity, they performed even fewer surgeries per quarter in the 18-month follow-up period than they did in 2021. If similar trends occurred in the estimated 3,000 spay-neuter clinics across the United States, the deficit in spay-neuter surgeries is estimated to have risen to 3.7 million surgeries, not including the compounding effect of those intact animals producing litters of their own. The continued decline in low-cost spay-neuter year over year impedes access to basic preventive pet healthcare and threatens to undermine decades of progress in controlling pet overpopulation.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fvets.2025.1558235","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,21]],"date-time":"2025-03-21T06:51:32Z","timestamp":1742539892000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The pandemic\u2019s cruel aftermath: progressive decline in spay\/neuter capacity"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"12","author":[{"given":"Simone D.","family":"Guerios","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Gina","family":"Clemmer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Julie 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