Abstract
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant effects on emergency medical services (EMS). The objective of this study was to investigate how the prehospital response by the Israeli National EMS System (Magen David Adom, MDA) was affected by the first six waves of COVID-19. METHODS: This was a retrospective study using the command-and-control database of MDA from January 1, 2019, through July 31, 2022. EMS responses from each of the six waves of COVID-19 were compared to a historical control period using a 7-day moving average. RESULTS: A total of 1,242,225 EMS responses were included. During the first wave, there was an increase in daily responses to fever (83.1 vs 40.3; p < 0.05) and respiratory symptoms (177.0 vs 151.7; p < 0.05), but a decrease for major trauma (78.3 vs 100.4; p < 0.05) and motor vehicle accidents (MVA) (44.4 vs 104.4; p < 0.05). A similar trend was demonstrated during the second wave. In the third wave, there were no significant differences in responses to respiratory complaints, cardiac complaints, or major trauma. During the subsequent waves, there were significant increases for all types of responses compared to the control periods. CONCLUSIONS: During the first two waves of COVID-19, there was an increase in responses for fever and respiratory symptoms and a decrease in responses for major trauma and MVA. In the subsequent waves, a gradual return to the trend of an overall increase in the number of responses over time compared to the control period was observed.