Influence of the COVID-19 pandemic measures on incidence and representation of other infectious diseases in Germany: a lesson to be learnt.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a wide range of serious health, social and economic consequences. To counteract the pandemic, various measures and restrictions such as lockdowns, closures, social distancing, hygiene, and protective measures such as wearing face masks have been enforced. Apart from the COVID-19 pandemic, these measures also had effects on other transmittable diseases. This study therefore determined the impact on case numbers and interest for other infectious diseases as well. Anonymized data on reported case numbers from the German Robert Koch Institute and data from Google Trends about the search interest have been used in this study to track courses of infectious diseases before and during the coronavirus pandemic in Germany. The results of this analysis clearly demonstrated that the case numbers of influenza, whooping cough, measles, mumps, scarlet fever and chicken pox decreased in the pandemic years, most probably due to anti-pandemic measures in Germany. Additionally, the Google Trends analysis demonstrated public awareness, documented by a corresponding search interest, for the new topic COVID-19 and for other infectious diseases. Online available data provided valuable sources for research purposes in infodemiology or infoveillance.