It has been demonstrated in a number of communities that the rates of serious crimes such as homicides and intimate partner violence have increased as a result of lockdowns due to COVID-19. To ascertain whether this is a universal trend the electronic autopsy files at Forensic Science South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, were searched for all homicides occurring between January 2015 and December 2020. There were 92 cases with 17 homicides in 2015 out of a total of 1356 cases (1.3%),18 in 2016 (18/1340 = 1.3%), 23 in 2017 (23/1419 = 1.6%); 14 in 2018 (14/1400 = 1.0%), 15 in 2019 (15/1492 = 1.0%) but in 2020 there were only 5 (5/1374 = 0.4%) (p < 0.02). Thus the incidence of homicides has fallen significantly in South Australia since the beginning of the pandemic. As the occurrence of serious crimes of violence and homicide has not followed a standard pattern in different communities it will be important to evaluate specific populations and subgroups rather than merely relying on accrued national data or extrapolating from one country to another. Pathologists, epidemiologists and health officials will need to specifically monitor local trends to understand more clearly what effects, if any, the pandemic has had on particular subgroups of deaths in order to more clearly understand causal relationships.

在许多社区中已经证明，由于COVID-19导致的封锁，凶杀和亲密伴侣暴力等严重犯罪的发生率有所提高。为了确定这是否是普遍趋势，我们在澳大利亚阿德莱德南澳大利亚法医科学的尸检文件中搜索了2015年1月至2020年12月之间发生的所有凶杀案。2015年，在1356宗案件中，有92宗涉及17宗凶杀案案件（1.3％），2016年18起（18/1340 = 1.3％），2017年23起（23/1419 = 1.6％）; 2018年为14（14/1400 = 1.0％），2019年为15（15/1492 = 1.0％），但2020年只有5（​​5/1374 = 0.4％）（p <0.02）。因此，自大流行开始以来，凶杀案的发生率在南澳大利亚州已大大下降。由于在不同社区中发生的严重的暴力和杀人罪没有遵循标准的模式，因此重要的是评估特定的人群和子群体，而不是仅仅依靠累积的国家数据或从一个国家推断到另一个国家。病理学家，流行病学家和卫生官员将需要专门监测当地趋势，以更清楚地了解大流行对特定死亡亚组的影响（如果有的话），以便更清楚地了解因果关系。