Citation

Scheier E, Levick N, Guri A, Balla U. Am. J. Emerg. Med. 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ajem.2021.03.086

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Israel spent more days in nationwide lockdown in 2020 than any other country, and is the first country to lockdown three times during this Covid-19 pandemic. The first lockdown, March 14-April 18, covered the Passover holiday. The second, September 18 to October 17, covered the Jewish high holidays. The third, December 27, 2020 to February 7, 2021, coincided with the onset of Israel's mass vaccination drive. There have been numerous school and daycare closures- middle schoolers have had only 2 weeks of in-class activity since the start of the current school year. We write to report a consistent decrease in infectious disease over the pandemic year, with an increase in trauma diagnoses over the second half of the pandemic year, when compared to the average over the last 3 years.

We collected date of visit, patient age, disposition and ICD-9 code at PED discharge for PED visits from February 1 to January 31, 2017-2020 (Appendix 1). We grouped visits into the following categories: respiratory illness (bronchiolitis, cough, wheeze, asthma, respiratory, dyspnea or pneumonia), gastrointestinal illness (gastroenteritis, diarrhea, or vomiting), fracture or dislocation, laceration or open wound, minor injury (injury, contusion, sprain, abrasion or fall), burns, bites, and diagnoses related to head injury...

... Injury requiring physician intervention (laceration, dislocation, fracture, open wound) neared the pre-pandemic average from June, and exceeded prior years averages from November through January. Visits for burns were higher than the 3 year average in six of last 8 months. Head injury was higher than average in only three of the first 9 months, and 56% higher over the last 3 months. There was a decrease in the number of visits for minor injury with the exception of December (Fig. 3) and an increase in all injury as a percentage of visits throughout the pandemic...

Language: en