Impact of COVID‐19 State of Emergency restrictions on presentations to two Victorian emergency departments

OBJECTIVE: To determine if COVID-19 State of Emergency (SOE) restrictions were associated with a reduction in presentations to two urban EDs in Melbourne, Victoria. METHODS: This retrospective observational study included adult patients presenting to The Alfred and Sandringham Hospital EDs during the first month of stage 2 and 3 SOE restrictions (26 March-25 April 2020). Patients transferred from other hospitals or diagnosed with COVID-19 were excluded. The primary outcome was the average number of presentations per day. Secondary outcomes included the average daily number of presentations for pre-specified subgroups defined by triage category and diagnosis. The independent impact of SOE restrictions, adjusted for underlying trends in attendance, was determined using negative binomial regression and reported as an incident rate ratio (IRR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI). RESULTS: Average daily attendance during the exposure period was 174.7. In the absence of SOE restrictions, 278.8 presentations per day were predicted, a reduction of 37.3% (IRR 0.63, 95% CI 0.59-0.67). Attendance was lower than anticipated for all triage categories (especially category 5 IRR 0.51, 95% CI 0.44-0.59) and diagnostic groups (including circulatory problems IRR 0.62, 95% CI 0.50-0.76 and injury IRR 0.58, 95% CI 0.53-0.63). There were fewer than predicted presentations for several sentinel diagnoses, including gastroenteritis (IRR 0.27, 95% CI 0.17-0.42) and renal colic (IRR 0.55, 95% CI 0.33-0.92). CONCLUSIONS: SOE restrictions were associated with a significant reduction in ED presentations across a range of triage categories and diagnoses. Public health messaging should emphasise the importance of timely ED attendance for acute illness and injury.