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Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research

Date Submitted: Jun 13, 2020
Date Accepted: Aug 1, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Aug 4, 2020

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Impact of Wearing Masks, Hand Hygiene, and Social Distancing on Influenza, Enterovirus, and All-Cause Pneumonia During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Retrospective National Epidemiological Surveillance Study

Chiu NC, Chi H, Tai YL, Peng CC, Tseng CY, Chen CC, Tan BF, Lin CY

Impact of Wearing Masks, Hand Hygiene, and Social Distancing on Influenza, Enterovirus, and All-Cause Pneumonia During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Retrospective National Epidemiological Surveillance Study

J Med Internet Res 2020;22(8):e21257

DOI: 10.2196/21257

PMID: 32750008

PMCID: 7471891

Wearing masks, hand hygiene, and social distancing contribute to the decrease of influenza and all-cause pneumonia in coronavirus pandemic: a retrospective national epidemiological surveillance study

  • Nan-Chang Chiu; 
  • Hsin Chi; 
  • Yu-Lin Tai; 
  • Chun-Chih Peng; 
  • Cheng-Yin Tseng; 
  • Chung-Chu Chen; 
  • Boon-Fatt Tan; 
  • Chien-Yu Lin

ABSTRACT

Background:

Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic was an important health crisis worldwide and several strategies were implemented to combat COVID-19, including social distancing, wearing masks and hand hygiene. The entire impact of COIVD-19 on other viral infections remained largely unclear.

Objective:

To investigate the impact of incidences of influenza virus infection, enterovirus infection, and all-cause pneumonia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods:

We utilized the electronic database of national surveillance infectious disease statistics system of Taiwan and extracted the incidences of COVID-19, influenza virus, enterovirus, and all-cause pneumonia. We compared the incidences of these diseases from week 45 of 2017 to week 21 of 2020 and calculated the R-squared value of linear trend estimation.

Results:

The COIVD-19 pandemic began in week 4 of 2020. Influenza virus usually peaked in winter and decreased around week 14. However, a significant decrease of influenza was observed after week 8 of 2020. The R2 values for 2017–2020 were 0.037, 0.021, 0.046 and 0.6 respectively. A dramatic decrease of all-cause pneumonia was also reported (R2 values for 2017–2020 were 0.435, 0.098, 0.3519 and 0.8199 respectively). On the contrary, enterovirus increased by week 18 in 2017-2019 but it didn’t increase in 2020.

Conclusions:

Using this national epidemiological database, we found a significant decrease of influenza, enterovirus, and all-cause pneumonia during COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing, wearing masks and hand hygiene may contribute to decrease of infectious diseases and further studies are warranted to elucidate the causal relationship. Clinical Trial: Not applicable


 Citation

Please cite as:

Chiu NC, Chi H, Tai YL, Peng CC, Tseng CY, Chen CC, Tan BF, Lin CY

Impact of Wearing Masks, Hand Hygiene, and Social Distancing on Influenza, Enterovirus, and All-Cause Pneumonia During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Retrospective National Epidemiological Surveillance Study

J Med Internet Res 2020;22(8):e21257

DOI: 10.2196/21257

PMID: 32750008

PMCID: 7471891

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