Public Health Measures During the COVID-19 Pandemic Reduce the Spread of Other Respiratory Infectious Diseases

Abstract

Background: Public health measures (such as wearing masks, physical distancing, and isolation) have significantly reduced the spread of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), but the impact of public health measures on other respiratory infectious diseases is unclear.Objective: To assess the correlation between public health measures and the incidence of respiratory infectious diseases in China during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: We collected the data from the National Health and Construction Commission in China on the number of patients with six respiratory infectious diseases (measles, tuberculosis, pertussis, scarlet fever, influenza, and mumps) from 2017 to 2020 and assessed the correlation between public health measures and the incidence of respiratory infectious diseases. Finally, we used the data of the six respiratory infectious diseases in 2021 to verify our results.Results: We found public health measures significantly reduced the incidence of measles (p = 0.002), tuberculosis (p = 0.002), pertussis (p = 0.004), scarlet fever (p = 0.002), influenza (p = 0.034), and mumps (p = 0.002) in 2020, and prevented seasonal peaks. Moreover, the effects of public health measures were most marked during the peak seasons for these infections. Of the six respiratory infectious diseases considered, tuberculosis was least affected by public health measures.Conclusion: Public health measures were very effective in reducing the incidence of respiratory infectious diseases, especially when the respiratory infectious diseases would normally have been at their peak.

Aggressive behavior, boredom, and protective factors among college students during closed-off management of the COVID-19 pandemic in China

“…COVID-19, a novel coronavirus disease, has caused numerous infections worldwide. To break the transmission link of the virus and curb the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese government has taken aggressive public health monitoring and interventions, such as mass nucleic acid testing, contact tracing, travel restrictions, and avoiding crowd gathering (Cheng et al, 2021;Hu et al, 2021;Wan et al, 2022). As the Omicron variant has caused COVID-19 resurgences in many places, in cities with severe epidemics, primary and middle schools have to be closed and converted to online teaching, and colleges have implemented relatively closed-off management.…”

Public face masks wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comprehensive analysis is needed for potential implications

“…For example, this preventative measure, along with other mitigation strategies (physical distancing and hand hygiene) employed to reduce COVID-19, concomitantly led to a decline in influenza, enterovirus, and all-cause pneumonia cases in Taiwan ( Chiu et al, 2020 ). Similarly, another retrospective study in China and Thailand also observed a decrease in the incidence of respiratory infectious diseases, both for viral and bacterial infections, during the pandemic ( Hu et al, 2021 ; Ndeh et al, 2022 ). Granted, it is difficult to establish the independent and collective effects of the measures deployed that yielded this positive spill over.…”

Analysis of the epidemiological characteristics between 2004 and 2017 and prediction of the changing pattern of other infectious diarrhea (OID) under COVID-19 in China

“…Some research have reported the epidemiological features of other notifiable diseases in China, such as sexually transmitted diseases and other respiratory infectious diseases, that the factors included spatial and temporal characteristics and age group distribution changed. [ 7 , 8 ] Sync with this, diarrheal cases have been found significantly reduced in England since COVID-19 control measures. [ 9 ] However, the impact of China’s measures against COVID-19 on the transmission of OID was not mentioned.…”