A multicentre retrospective cohort study on COVID-19-related physical interventions and adult hospital admissions for ENT infections.

Purpose: To report changes in adult hospital admission rates for acute ENT infections following the introduction of COVID-19-related physical interventions such as hand washing, use of face masks and social distancing of 2-m in the United Kingdom.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study comparing adult admissions with acute tonsillitis, peritonsillar abscess, epiglottitis, glandular fever, peri-orbital cellulitis, acute otitis media, acute mastoiditis, retropharyngeal abscess and parapharyngeal abscess in the 1-year period after the introduction of COVID-related physical interventions (2020-2021) with a 1-year period before this (2019-2020) in three UK secondary care ENT departments.

Results: In total, there were significantly fewer admissions for ENT infections (n = 1073, 57.