Bronchiolitis vs. COVID-19: epidemiologic correlations from a single Pediatric Unit experience

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The spread of SARS-CoV-2 pandemia in Europe has been socially counteracted with the aid of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). This rapidly changed the epidemiology of viral respiratory diseases other than the COVID-19. Thus a sharp decrease in bronchiolitis patients has been recorded all over Europe since 2020. Aims and Objectives: Due to the looser NPIs and to the increased accesses to hospitals than the year before we chose to analyze the series of admissions to our Unit either for bronchiolitis or for COVID-19, from 2021 October, 1st to 2022 January, 31st. Method(s) Data were obtained from the hospital database. Overall 2582 patients accessed the Pediatric Emergency Room (PER). Of them 228 (8.8%) were admitted to the Pediatric Unit (PU). All admissions were tested for SARSCoV-2 by nasopharyngeal molecular swab. Result(s) Overall we recorded 71 bronchiolitis and 26 COVID-19. Data are reported in the table herein. View inline In January 2022 the COVID-19 impacted overall admissions more significantly than did the bronchiolitis in November plus December 2021 (chi2, p<0.01). Conclusion(s) By our limited experience we tried to describe the relationships that seemingly regulate the epidemiology of respiratory viruses. As a matter of fact, when one virus promptly emerged the other seemed to find no space in the ecosystem despite the rules for NPIs did not change meanwhile. Epidemiology of viruses looking for the same habitat maybe needs furher evaluations.