
When the coronavirus pandemic began, one U.S. children’s hospital saw an increase in trauma cases from recreational and outdoor activities, even as total ER visits dropped by 50%, researchers report. What happened? Their new study suggests that being in lockdown, with schools closed, may have prompted more kids to go outside and play — and potentially get injured doing so. At the same time, parents may have feared taking their children to the hospital unless it was a dire injury. Study author Dr. Zaid Haddadin, a postdoctoral research fellow at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, and his colleagues looked at the number of emergency room visits for respiratory illnesses or trauma between March and May 2020. Over that time, a total of nearly 6,400 pediatric emergency room visits occurred in 2020, compared with more than 12,000 in 2019. Meanwhile, the number of respiratory care for kids visits dropped by 58% in 2020, the researchers found. “Community efforts to control the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 might have played a role in decreasing the spread of other respiratory viruses in children,” Haddadin explained. But at the same time, there was a significant increase in the number of trauma visits related to activities like all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) and motorcycles, which might have been related to school closings, Haddadin said. “Most schools were closed starting mid-March in our… read on > read on >