US pediatric non–COVID-19 hospitalizations fell up to 45.4% amid the pandemic and related lockdowns compared with previous years, a study published late last week in JAMA Network Open finds.Children's Hospital of Philadelphia researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of the Pediatric Health Information Systems database of 5,424,688 admissions of 3,372,839 children to 49 hospitals from Jan 1, 2010, to Jun 30, 2020.Of the 5,424,688 hospitalizations, 213,571 (3.9%) occurred from Jan 1 to Jun 30, 2020.
Admissions began dropping in March 2020, reaching a 45.4% reduction in April over previous years for all diagnoses except birth.