Fewer infants, children and teenagers visited emergency rooms in 2020 as hospitals discouraged non-COVID cases, according to federal data released Tuesday.
The overall rate of emergency department visits among children aged 0-17 decreased from 48 trips per 100 children in 2019 to 31 per 100 kids in 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rates dropped for both sexes and all races, and wait times also grew shorter, the agency found.
Visits fell fastest among infants up to one year old in 2020, hitting nearly one-half of the 2019 rate, the report found. “Additionally, I think a lot of people were seeing the reports on the news of overwhelmed hospitals,” said Dr. Christopher A. Rees, a pediatrician and researcher at Emory University School of Medicine. “I recall many families who did seek care in the emergency department during the lockdown periods expressing their hesitance about coming for fear of getting COVID-19.”
Many parents used the ER before COVID-19 because they did not have a family doctor, noted Katy Talento, a former top health adviser at the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Donald Trump. That likely occurred because parents waited longer before taking kids to get help, some pediatricians said.
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