Many countries have implemented school closures as part of social distancing measures intended to control the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The aim of this study was to assess the early impact of nationwide school closure (March-May 2020) and social distancing for COVID-19 on the number of inpatients with major childhood infectious diseases in Japan. Using data from the Diagnosis Procedure Combination system in Japan, we identified patients aged 15 years or younger with admissions for a diagnosis of upper respiratory tract infection (URTI), lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI), influenza, gastrointestinal infection (GII), appendicitis, urinary tract infection (UTI), or skin and soft tissue infection (SSTI) between July 2018 and June 2020. Two periods were considered in the analysis: a pre- and a post-school-closure period. Changes in the trend of the weekly number of inpatients between the two periods were assessed using interrupted time-series analysis. A total of 75,053 patients in 210 hospitals were included. We found a marked reduction in the number of inpatients in the post-school-closure period, with an estimated reduction of 581 (standard error 42.9) inpatients per week (p < 0.001). The main part of the reduction was for pre-school children. Remarkable decreases in the number of inpatients with URI, LRTI, and GII were observed, while there were relatively mild changes in the influenza, appendicitis, UTI, and SSTI groups. We confirmed a marked reduction in the number of inpatients with childhood non-COVID-19 acute infections in the post-school-closure period.

中文翻译：

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日本停课和社交疏远对COVID-19的早期影响对日本儿童非COVID-19急性感染的住院人数

许多国家已关闭学校，作为旨在控制2019年冠状病毒疾病传播的社会疏远措施的一部分（COVID-19）。这项研究的目的是评估全国关闭学校（2020年3月至2020年5月）和COVID-19的社会距离对日本主要的儿童期传染病住院人数的早期影响。利用日本诊断程序组合系统中的数据，我们确定了年龄在15岁以下的患者以诊断上呼吸道感染（URTI），下呼吸道感染（LRTI），流行性感冒，胃肠道感染（GII），阑尾炎，尿路感染（UTI）或皮肤和软组织感染（SSTI）在2018年7月至2020年6月之间进行。分析中考虑了两个时期：停学前和放学后。使用中断的时间序列分析来评估两个时期之间每周住院人数趋势的变化。包括210所医院中的75,053名患者。我们发现，停课后的住院人数明显减少，估计每周减少581名患者（标准误为42.9）（p <0.001）。减少的主要部分是学龄前儿童。观察到URI，LRTI和GII的住院患者人数显着减少，而流感，阑尾炎，UTI和SSTI组的变化相对较轻。我们确认，在放学后的这段时间里，患有儿童非COVID-19急性感染的住院病人数量明显减少。