The Effect of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Mitigation Strategies on Seasonal Respiratory Viruses: A Tale of 2 Large Metropolitan Centers in the United States

Amy C Sherman; Ahmed Babiker; Andrew J Sieben; Alexander Pyden; James Steinberg; Colleen S Kraft; Katia Koelle; Sanjat Kanjilal

doi:10.1093/cid/ciaa1704

The Effect of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Mitigation Strategies on Seasonal Respiratory Viruses: A Tale of 2 Large Metropolitan Centers in the United States

Clin Infect Dis. 2021 Mar 1;72(5):e154-e157. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciaa1704.

Authors

Amy C Sherman^{1

2}, Ahmed Babiker^{1

3}, Andrew J Sieben⁴, Alexander Pyden⁵, James Steinberg¹, Colleen S Kraft^{1

3}, Katia Koelle⁶, Sanjat Kanjilal^{2

7}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
² Division of Infectious Diseases, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
³ Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
⁴ Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
⁵ Department of Pathology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
⁶ Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
⁷ Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Abstract

To assess the impact of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic on seasonal respiratory viruses, absolute case counts and viral reproductive rates from 2019-2020 were compared against previous seasons. Our findings suggest that the public health measures implemented to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission significantly reduced the transmission of other respiratory viruses.

Keywords: RSV; SARS-CoV-2; epidemiology; influenza; transmission.

Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America 2020.

MeSH terms

COVID-19*
Humans
Pandemics
SARS-CoV-2
Seasons
United States / epidemiology
Viruses*

Grants and funding

T32 AI074492/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States