COVID-19 related reduction in pediatric emergency healthcare utilization – a concerning trend

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Abstract

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted healthcare systems worldwide. In addition to the direct impact of the virus on patient morbidity and mortality, the effect of lockdown strategies on health and healthcare utilization have become apparent. Little is known on the effect of the pandemic on pediatric and adolescent medicine. We examined the impact of the pandemic on pediatric emergency healthcare utilization.

Methods

We conducted a monocentric, retrospective analysis of n = 5,424 pediatric emergency department visits between January 1st and April 19th of 2019 and 2020, and compared healthcare utilization during the pandemic in 2020 to the same period in 2019.

Results

In the four weeks after lockdown in Germany began, we observed a massive drop of 63.8% in pediatric emergency healthcare utilization (mean daily visits 26.8 ± SEM 1.5 in 2019 vs. 9.7 ± SEM 1 in 2020, p < 0.005). This drop in cases occurred for both communicable and non-communicable diseases. A larger proportion of patients under one year old (daily mean of 16.6% ±SEM 1.4 in 2019 vs. 23.1% ±SEM 1.7 in 2020, p < 0.01) and of cases requiring hospitalisation (mean of 13.9% ±SEM 1.6 in 2019 vs. 26.6% ±SEM 3.3 in 2020, p < 0.001) occurred during the pandemic. During the analysed time periods, few intensive care admissions and no fatalities occurred.

Conclusions

Our data illustrate a significant decrease in pediatric emergency department visits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public outreach is needed to encourage parents and guardians to seek medical attention for pediatric emergencies in spite of the pandemic.

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Most cited references 15

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A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin

Peng Zhou, Xing-Lou Yang, Xian-Guang Wang … (2020)

Since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) 18 years ago, a large number of SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs) have been discovered in their natural reservoir host, bats 1–4 . Previous studies have shown that some bat SARSr-CoVs have the potential to infect humans 5–7 . Here we report the identification and characterization of a new coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which caused an epidemic of acute respiratory syndrome in humans in Wuhan, China. The epidemic, which started on 12 December 2019, had caused 2,794 laboratory-confirmed infections including 80 deaths by 26 January 2020. Full-length genome sequences were obtained from five patients at an early stage of the outbreak. The sequences are almost identical and share 79.6% sequence identity to SARS-CoV. Furthermore, we show that 2019-nCoV is 96% identical at the whole-genome level to a bat coronavirus. Pairwise protein sequence analysis of seven conserved non-structural proteins domains show that this virus belongs to the species of SARSr-CoV. In addition, 2019-nCoV virus isolated from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of a critically ill patient could be neutralized by sera from several patients. Notably, we confirmed that 2019-nCoV uses the same cell entry receptor—angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2)—as SARS-CoV.

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SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children

Xiaoxia Lu, Liqiong Zhang, Hui Du … (2020)

To the Editor: As of March 10, 2020, the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has been responsible for more than 110,000 infections and 4000 deaths worldwide, but data regarding the epidemiologic characteristics and clinical features of infected children are limited. 1-3 A recent review of 72,314 cases by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed that less than 1% of the cases were in children younger than 10 years of age. 2 In order to determine the spectrum of disease in children, we evaluated children infected with SARS-CoV-2 and treated at the Wuhan Children’s Hospital, the only center assigned by the central government for treating infected children under 16 years of age in Wuhan. Both symptomatic and asymptomatic children with known contact with persons having confirmed or suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection were evaluated. Nasopharyngeal or throat swabs were obtained for detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA by established methods. 4 The clinical outcomes were monitored up to March 8, 2020. Of the 1391 children assessed and tested from January 28 through February 26, 2020, a total of 171 (12.3%) were confirmed to have SARS-CoV-2 infection. Demographic data and clinical features are summarized in Table 1. (Details of the laboratory and radiologic findings are provided in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org.) The median age of the infected children was 6.7 years. Fever was present in 41.5% of the children at any time during the illness. Other common signs and symptoms included cough and pharyngeal erythema. A total of 27 patients (15.8%) did not have any symptoms of infection or radiologic features of pneumonia. A total of 12 patients had radiologic features of pneumonia but did not have any symptoms of infection. During the course of hospitalization, 3 patients required intensive care support and invasive mechanical ventilation; all had coexisting conditions (hydronephrosis, leukemia [for which the patient was receiving maintenance chemotherapy], and intussusception). Lymphopenia (lymphocyte count, <1.2×109 per liter) was present in 6 patients (3.5%). The most common radiologic finding was bilateral ground-glass opacity (32.7%). As of March 8, 2020, there was one death. A 10-month-old child with intussusception had multiorgan failure and died 4 weeks after admission. A total of 21 patients were in stable condition in the general wards, and 149 have been discharged from the hospital. This report describes a spectrum of illness from SARS-CoV-2 infection in children. In contrast with infected adults, most infected children appear to have a milder clinical course. Asymptomatic infections were not uncommon. 2 Determination of the transmission potential of these asymptomatic patients is important for guiding the development of measures to control the ongoing pandemic.

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COVID-19: protecting health-care workers

The Lancet (2020)

Worldwide, as millions of people stay at home to minimise transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, health-care workers prepare to do the exact opposite. They will go to clinics and hospitals, putting themselves at high risk from COVID-2019. Figures from China's National Health Commission show that more than 3300 health-care workers have been infected as of early March and, according to local media, by the end of February at least 22 had died. In Italy, 20% of responding health-care workers were infected, and some have died. Reports from medical staff describe physical and mental exhaustion, the torment of difficult triage decisions, and the pain of losing patients and colleagues, all in addition to the infection risk. As the pandemic accelerates, access to personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers is a key concern. Medical staff are prioritised in many countries, but PPE shortages have been described in the most affected facilities. Some medical staff are waiting for equipment while already seeing patients who may be infected or are supplied with equipment that might not meet requirements. Alongside concerns for their personal safety, health-care workers are anxious about passing the infection to their families. Health-care workers who care for elderly parents or young children will be drastically affected by school closures, social distancing policies, and disruption in the availability of food and other essentials. Health-care systems globally could be operating at more than maximum capacity for many months. But health-care workers, unlike ventilators or wards, cannot be urgently manufactured or run at 100% occupancy for long periods. It is vital that governments see workers not simply as pawns to be deployed, but as human individuals. In the global response, the safety of health-care workers must be ensured. Adequate provision of PPE is just the first step; other practical measures must be considered, including cancelling non-essential events to prioritise resources; provision of food, rest, and family support; and psychological support. Presently, health-care workers are every country's most valuable resource. © 2020 Denis Lovrovic/AFP/Getty Images 2020 Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Christine Happle: happle.christine@mh-hannover.de

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Pediatr

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Pediatr

Title: BMC Pediatrics

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-2431

Publication date (Electronic): 7 September 2020

Publication date PMC-release: 7 September 2020

Publication date Collection: 2020

Volume: 20

Electronic Location Identifier: 427

Affiliations

[1 ]GRID grid.10423.34, ISNI 0000 0000 9529 9877, Department of Pediatric Pneumology, Allergology, and Neonatology, , Hannover Medical School, ; Carl-Neuberg-Straße 1, D - 30625 Hannover, Germany

[2 ]GRID grid.452624.3, German Center for Lung Research, Biomedical Research in End Stage and Obstructive Lung Disease, , BREATH Hannover, ; Hanover, Germany

[3 ]GRID grid.452463.2, German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), partner site Hannover-Braunschweig, ; Braunschweig, Germany

[4 ]GRID grid.10423.34, ISNI 0000 0000 9529 9877, Department of Pediatrics, , Hannover Medical School, ; Hannover, Germany

[5 ]GRID grid.411984.1, ISNI 0000 0001 0482 5331, Department of General Practice, , University Medical Centre Goettingen, ; Goettingen, Germany

[6 ]GRID grid.10423.34, ISNI 0000 0000 9529 9877, Department of Pediatric Cardiology and Intensive Care, , Hannover Medical School, ; Hannover, Germany

[7 ]GRID grid.10423.34, ISNI 0000 0000 9529 9877, Pediatric Intensive Care Network Northern Germany/ PIN, , Hannover Medical School, ; Hannover, Germany

[8 ]GRID grid.10423.34, ISNI 0000 0000 9529 9877, Cluster of Excellence RESIST (EXC 2155), , Hannover Medical School, ; Carl-Neuberg-Straße 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany

[9 ]GRID grid.10423.34, ISNI 0000 0000 9529 9877, Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, , Hannover Medical School, ; Hannover, Germany

Article

Publisher ID: 2303

DOI: 10.1186/s12887-020-02303-6

PMC ID: 7475725

PubMed ID: 32894080

SO-VID: ad7a5ed3-aa6b-46ed-8651-a69c4f760cb9

License:

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

History

Date received : 17 May 2020

Date accepted : 19 August 2020

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Pediatrics

Keywords: sars-cov-2,children,pandemic,healthcare utilization,emergency care,covid-19,pediatric,emergency department

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Pediatrics

Keywords: sars-cov-2, children, pandemic, healthcare utilization, emergency care, covid-19, pediatric, emergency department

COVID-19 related reduction in pediatric emergency healthcare utilization – a concerning trend

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Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Related collections

Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19

Most cited references 15

A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin

SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children

COVID-19: protecting health-care workers

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