COVID-19 and delay to care in pediatric trauma.

We would like to share ideas on ‘Multi-day delay to care identified in pediatric trauma cases during COVID-19’ [1]. Shaw et al., [1] found an increasing nonaccidental trauma in 2020 compared to the previous year. In fact, the impact of COVID-19 is widely reported. Delay of clinical management is common. Regarding the incidence of trauma, an interrelationship between COVID-19 and incidence nonaccidental trauma is interesting. Locking down might increase relative rate of trauma incidence occurring at home because people have to stay at home during lockdown and accidents will not occur outside. In fact, the lockdown should help decrease accidental injury but it should not increase incidence of nontraumatic case. Finally, the observed incidence is from medical center-based data. The different situations might occur in different settings. The major trauma center might have increased the number of cases during the COVID-19 period when a small center cannot provide sufficient service [2]. Additionally, local lockdown policies can affect the opportunity that the patient has to visit the trauma center. If there is a very strict lockdown, a case with nonsevere non-accidental trauma might have self-care at home.

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Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.