Table 3. Outpatient visits to Aravind Eye Care System facilities during and before COVID-19 pandemic waves, by age, Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu, India, 2019–2021.

Outpatients’ characteristic	Tertiary care centres				Secondary care centres				Vision centresa
	No. outpatient visits (%)		P valueb		No. outpatient visits (%)		P valueb		No. outpatient visits (%)		P valueb
	Pandemic periodc (n = 1 033 060)	Comparison periodd (n = 2 418 084)			Pandemic periodc (n = 259 317)	Comparison periodd (n = 413 690)			Pandemic periodc (n = 302 495)	Comparison periodd (n = 414 100)
Age, years
≤ 20	107 361 (10.39)	326 370 (13.50)	< 0.0001		25 848 (9.97)	53 146 (12.85)	< 0.0001		45 669 (15.10)	74 554 (18.00)	< 0.0001
21–40	188 899 (18.29)	377 869 (15.63)	< 0.0001		52 371 (20.20)	70 838 (17.12)	< 0.0001		85 661 (28.32)	110 058 (26.58)	< 0.0001
41–60	427 611 (41.39)	911 047 (37.68)	< 0.0001		104 391 (40.26)	150 873 (36.47)	< 0.0001		107 995 (35.70)	140 321 (33.89)	< 0.0001
61–75	276 277 (26.74)	704 733 (29.14)	< 0.0001		67 320 (25.96)	119 536 (28.90)	< 0.0001		55 521 (18.35)	77 331 (18.67)	< 0.0001
> 75	32 912 (3.19)	98 065 (4.06)	< 0.0001		9 387 (3.61)	19 297 (4.66)	< 0.0001		7 649 (2.53)	11 836 (2.86)	0.0006
Sex
Female	483 898 (46.84)	1 183 564 (48.95)	< 0.0001		133 081 (51.32)	226 891 (54.85)	< 0.0001		146 623 (48.47)	209 657 (50.63)	< 0.0001
Male	549 162 (53.16)	1 234 520 (51.05)	< 0.0001		126 236 (48.68)	186 799 (45.15)	< 0.0001		155 872 (51.53)	204 443 (49.37)	< 0.0001

COVID-19: coronavirus disease 2019.

^a Vision centres are primary care centres.

^b P values were derived using the two-sample proportion test.

^c The pandemic period comprised two waves of the pandemic from 24 March 2020 to 31 October 2020 and from 1 April 2021 to 30 June 2021, respectively.

^d The corresponding comparison periods were from 24 March 2019 to 31 October 2019 and from 1 April 2019 to 30 June 2019, respectively.