ER visits declined during the pandemic, but maybe that's not a bad thing

Overall, there were nearly 40,000 ER visits for these four conditions during the 2019 and 2020 periods combined, including nearly 16,000 visits for appendicitis, 12,733 visits for miscarriage, 8,457 visits for gallbladder inflammation and 2,537 visits for ectopic pregnancy. Visits for all four conditions declined at the start of the pandemic in March 2020 compared to the 2019 period; however, visits for gallbladder inflammation and ectopic pregnancy soon returned to normal levels after a few weeks. In contrast, visits for appendicitis and miscarriage remained below expected levels, with vists for these conditions down by 20% to 39% per week from March 2020 to June 2020. That translates to 1,087 fewer visits for appendicitis and 984 fewer visits for miscarriage during the pandemic period. But critically, the researchers did not find evidence that this drop in ER visits was harmful to patients. For example, there was no evidence that patients were sicker when they came in (because they delayed care) in 2020 versus 2019 — the researchers found there was no difference in the type of care patients needed, how long they stayed in the hospital or their overall rates of complications or death, in 2020 versus 2019.
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