Apr 16, 2021
THURSDAY, April 15, 2021 (HealthDay News) — The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns on asthma is explored in three studies published online March 29 in
Thorax.
Syed A. Shah, D. Phil., from the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, and colleagues derived asthma exacerbation rates for every week and compared rates for January to August 2020 to a pre-COVID-19 period and January to August 2016 to 2019. Data were included for 100,165 patients with asthma who experienced at least one exacerbation during 2016 to 2020. The researchers found a significant reduction in the level of exacerbation rates across all patients when comparing the prelockdown to postlockdown periods (−0.196 episodes per person-year).