COVID-19 pandemic and the incidence of community-acquired pneumonia in elderly people

Yamamoto, Takashi; Komiya, Kosaku; Fujita, Naoko; Okabe, Eiji; Hiramatsu, Kazufumi; Kadota, Jun-ichi

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of community-acquired pneumonia in elderly people remains uncertain. We compared the number of elderly patients admitted to our hospital for community-acquired pneumonia from January to June 2020 to the numbers from the same period in each of the last three years. The number of patients began decreasing in February 2020, and by April 2020 the number was significantly lower than those from the same period in the three years prior. There is no evidence regarding the impact of general infection control measures, such as wearing a face mask or washing one's hands, on the development of community-acquired pneumonia, because causative bacteria are not believed to be transmitted from human to human. However, these measures might have indirectly contributed to a decreased number of cases through the prevention of common viral infections which could be a trigger of community-acquired pneumonia.