Kaur Ravinder, Schulz Steven, Fuji Naoko, Pichichero Michael
Center for Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Rochester General Hospital Research Institute, Rochester, NY, United States.
Front Pediatr. 2021 Sep 13;9:722483. doi: 10.3389/fped.2021.722483. eCollection 2021.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to day care and school closures and children staying home for several months. When they gradually returned, aggressive regulations were implemented in New York State to reduce viral transmission. An ongoing prospective study occurring in the Rochester, NY region, focused on early childhood respiratory infectious diseases, afforded an opportunity to assess the impact of the pandemic on the incidence of these illnesses in a primary care outpatient setting. Physician-diagnosed, medically attended infection visits were assessed in two child cohorts, age 6-36 months old: from March 15 to December 31, 2020 (the pandemic period) compared to the same months in 2019 (prepandemic). Nasopharyngeal colonization by potential otopathogens during healthy/well-child and acute otitis media (AOM) visits was evaluated. One hundred and forty-four children were included in the pandemic cohort and 215 in the prepandemic cohort. The pandemic cohort of children experienced 1.8-fold less frequent infectious disease visits during the pandemic ( < 0.0001). Specifically, visits for AOM were 3.7-fold lower ( < 0.0001), viral upper respiratory infections (URI) 3.8-fold lower ( < 0.0001), croup 27.5-fold lower ( < 0.0001), and bronchiolitis 7.4-fold lower ( = 0.04) than the prepandemic cohort. ( = 0.03), ( < 0.0001), and ( < 0.0001) nasopharyngeal colonization occurred less frequently among children during the pandemic. In primary care pediatric practice, during the first 9 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, significant decreases in the frequency of multiple respiratory infections and nasopharyngeal colonization by potential bacterial respiratory pathogens occurred in children age 6-36 months old.
2019年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行导致日托中心和学校关闭，儿童居家数月。当他们逐渐返校时，纽约州实施了严格的规定以减少病毒传播。纽约州罗切斯特地区正在进行一项针对幼儿呼吸道传染病的前瞻性研究，这为评估大流行对初级保健门诊环境中这些疾病发病率的影响提供了机会。在两个6至36个月大的儿童队列中评估了医生诊断的、有医疗就诊记录的感染病例：将2020年3月15日至12月31日（大流行期间）与2019年同期（大流行前）进行比较。评估了健康/正常儿童就诊和急性中耳炎（AOM）就诊期间潜在耳病原体的鼻咽定植情况。大流行队列中有144名儿童，大流行前队列中有215名儿童。大流行期间，儿童传染病就诊频率降低了1.8倍（<0.0001）。具体而言，AOM就诊次数降低了3.7倍（<0.0001），病毒性上呼吸道感染（URI）降低了3.8倍（<0.0001），喉炎降低了27.5倍（<0.0001），细支气管炎降低了7.4倍（=0.04），均低于大流行前队列。（=0.03），（<0.0001），并且（<0.0001）大流行期间儿童鼻咽定植的发生率较低。在初级保健儿科实践中，在COVID-19大流行的前9个月，6至36个月大儿童的多种呼吸道感染频率以及潜在细菌性呼吸道病原体的鼻咽定植显著下降。
