Emergency Department visits reportedly down during pandemic, including parts of the Brazos Valley Shutterstock/Shutterstock and last updated 2021-06-01 18:48:12-04 BRYAN, TEXAS â When we think of places particularly hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, we think of emergency departments at the rescue to so many. Researchers in Aggieland and beyond concluded Emergency Department visits actually declined from mid-March to August 2020. In the study titled "Trends in outpatient emergency department visits during the COVID-19 pandemic at a large, urban, academic hospital system" researchers aimed to analyze trends in the number of outpatient ED visits during the COVID-19 pandemic. As published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, the study used data from a large urban academic hospital system in Utah and data from treat-and-release emergency department visits during the pandemic.