COVID-19 confinement tied to reduced Asthma flares in Children, finds study
A recent study published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society suggests a steep drop in the emergency department (ED) visits for asthma exacerbation at Boston Children's Hospital during the early months of the pandemic when there was city-wide confinement were in place.
A series of studies have demonstrated that the morbidity from Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is lower in children compared to adults. It is however unclear what is the impact of asthma on the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19 in children, and what is the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on asthma-related outcomes in children. For this purpose researchers of Boston Children's Hospital conducted a study to evaluate the impact of COVID 19 pandemic in paediatric emergency department utilization for asthma.
The researchers compared ED visits for asthma exacerbation between January 5 and May 23 in 2018, 2019, and 2020. The City-wide lockdown was declared on March 24, 2020. The researchers documented a total of 2,543 ED asthma visits across the 3-year periods of January 5 to May 23.
Key findings of the study were:
♦After adjusting for year, weeks, and time period (pre-or post- shutdown), researchers observed a significant decline in ED visits by 2020 when compared with the two previous years and they found no such significant changes in ER visit between 2018 and 2019.
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