Incidence of New-Onset Type 1 Diabetes Among US Children During the COVID-19 Global Pandemic

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a disorder of autoimmune-mediated pancreatic β-cell destruction and decreased insulin production. Although the incidence of this disease is increasing globally each year,¹ our local experience at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, the tertiary care center for children in San Diego, California, and surrounding counties, was that the incidence of new-onset T1D during the COVID-19 global pandemic in 2020 and 2021 appeared to have increased compared with previous years. We performed a 6-year retrospective review of the medical record to evaluate whether the perceived increased incidence was significant and whether or not more children had diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) at presentation or required pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) admission (at our institution for altered mental status or severe acidosis only) as a measure of the severity of illness at diabetes onset.