Summary
Asthma was considered a risk for Covid-19 infection and hospitalisation early in the pandemic. Social distancing measures in 2020 were associated with lower rates of emergency visits and hospitalisations for asthma among children. Individual-level risk of Covid-19 infection was reduced with vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 for adults and children in 2020 and 2021, and several states sustained other infection prevention efforts (eg, face mask requirements) into 2021.
Whether symptomatic asthma among children was associated with population-level Covid-19 illness exposure or mitigation strategies is not understood. The authors of this study hypothesised that symptomatic asthma would be positively associated with population-level Covid-19 overall mortality and would be inversely associated with population-level completion of the COVID-19 primary vaccination series and with state face mask mandates.
Content
In this study, which is the first population-level parent-reported childhood asthma symptom prevalence and Covid-19 vaccination study, the authors found that higher Covid-19 vaccination rates may confer protection against symptomatic asthma. Covid-19 vaccination yields prophylactic benefits against SARS-CoV-2 infection for individual children and may also protect against other human coronaviruses through cross-reactive antibody responses.
Community-level immunity in states with higher vaccination rates may have helped reduce children’s asthma risk. In contrast, neither concurrent exposure to high population-level burden of Covid-19–attributed disease nor sustained state-level face mask requirements were associated with concurrent trends in parent-reported symptomatic childhood asthma.
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