The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in implementation of public health measures worldwide to mitigate disease spread, including; travel restrictions, lockdowns, messaging on handwashing, use of face coverings and physical distancing. As the pandemic progresses, exceptional decreases in seasonal respiratory viruses are increasingly reported. We aimed to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on laboratory confirmed detection of seasonal non-SARS-CoV-2 respiratory viruses in Canada.

Epidemiologic data were obtained from the Canadian Respiratory Virus Detection Surveillance System. Weekly data from the week ending 30^th August 2014 until the week ending the 13^th March 2021 were analysed. We compared trends in laboratory detection and test volumes during the 2020/2021 season with pre-pandemic seasons from 2014 to 2019.

We …