Trends in diagnosis of tonsillitis during the Covid19 pandemic.

Tonsillitis accounts for between 5 and 10% of all cases of illness seen by the general practitioner. This has been a rather stable prevalence over the last 100 years or so. The analysis of the incidence by age shows, for both tonsillitis and sore throat, a relatively high incidence in childhood and young adults, while after that period there is a fall with age. Laryngitis, on the other hand, appears to occur more frequently among adults than among children. The incidence of tonsillitis, sore throat and other pharynx diseases is higher among females than males. There is no indication among school-age children that there is a higher incidence in women. There is a fairly regular seasonal variation in incidence as well, with higher incidence in winter and spring. The UK was put into lockdown on 23 March 2020 in an unprecedented step to attempt to limit the spread of coronavirus. From an audit of over a total population of 9534 people, starting from the beginning of the lockdown to the 18 May 2020, the number of patients with diagnosis of tonsillitis was audited. The data were compared to those recorded in the 5 precedent five years during the very same period of time. Tonsillitis accounted, on average, for 8% of all cases of illness seen by the general practitioner from 2015 to 2019. The mean number of patients seen for tonsillitis was 805.8 with SD of 28.96. In 2020, the number of cases of tonsillitis was 593. From 2015 to 2020, the higher incidence in the female sex was confirmed from all the age bands>19.  The greatest drop in cases was not recorded in the age group 0 to 9, but - in the order - 10 to 19, 20 to 29 and 30 to 39 with a reduction above the 30% in the first 2 age bands. Overall, the drop was seen across all the age bands.