Epidemiology of respiratory virus before and during COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract

The COVID pandemic has forcefully turned the spotlight on the importance of the diagnosis of respiratory virus infections. Viruses have always been a frequent and common cause of respiratory tract infections. Rapid molecular diagnostics applied to the diagnostics of respiratory virus infections has revolutionized microbiology laboratories only a few years ago. Few studies illustrate the epidemiology of respiratory viruses, and fewer still those that have compared the pre-pandemic to the pandemic period. During the first year of the pandemic (2020-2021) it was clear to everyone to witness a sudden disappearance of the circulation of all the other respiratory viruses, especially those typically isolated during the winter time, such as RSV and Influenza virus. In our study we wanted to verify this phenomenon and to study the epidemiology of our local reality, analyzing three consecutive flu seasons (2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2020-2021). The results lead us to note that the prevalence of positivity to respiratory virus infections went from 49.8% (2018-2019) and 39% (2019-2020) to 13.4% (2020-2021). This decrease is at least partly attributable to the security measures adopted (social distancing and mask), but it certainly opens up new scenarios when the restriction measures will be terminated. We believe such studies can provide real-world evidence of the effectiveness of public health interventions implemented during current and future pandemics.