The article compares the outcomes of viral respiratory infections in children before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers looked at how children fared with these infections in the two different time periods. They found that during the COVID-19 era, children had fewer hospitalizations and needed less intensive care for viral respiratory infections compared to before the pandemic. This suggests that measures taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19 may have also helped reduce the severity of other respiratory infections in children.