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>As well as people not being able to get the necessary treatment due to hospitals being overloaded, the study authors also speculate that people may have stayed

>As well as people not being able to get the necessary treatment due to hospitals being overloaded, the study authors also speculate that people may have stayed at home due to the virus despite experiencing worsening symptoms of another condition they may have had. OK, I read this as two separate things that should not be described in the same "35%" statistic. In the former, the virus caused hospital overload specifically due to rising cases of the virus, or virus-related exacerbation of underlying disease. In the latter, people's perception of the threat of hospitals, which were hotbeds for the virus, caused them not to seek treatment in hospitals. Case #1 is attributable to the virus. Case #2 is indirect, but I'd argue that those same people would have also been somewhat impacted given that A) it's possible the hospital they avoided was overloaded and B) it's possible the hospital they avoided was a hotbed where they could have contracted the virus. There's also that C) they could have received successful treatment, but how can we measure that? For (A) and (B), the outcome was still death.

jtbayly 6y ago
For (B), the outcome is not necessarily death. Getting Covid-19 is not an automatic death sentence. Better to risk getting it and have a chance of living than stay home and die of a stroke.
- aesh2Xa1 6y ago
  True, the patient could receive treatment. The risk, given a pre-existing condition, to become infected with the virus is still an additional burden, but perhaps not death. Conversely, some number of people with pre-existing conditions, who chose to avoid hospitals and who did not die as an outcome, could have also died had they visited. I imagine that the people who chose to stay home are in a set where it wasn't obvious that staying home meant death. Thus, I think it was a good bet given what we know about coronavirus complications, spreadability, and virulence.

jtbayly 6y ago

For (B), the outcome is not necessarily death. Getting Covid-19 is not an automatic death sentence. Better to risk getting it and have a chance of living than stay home and die of a stroke.

aesh2Xa1 6y ago
True, the patient could receive treatment. The risk, given a pre-existing condition, to become infected with the virus is still an additional burden, but perhaps not death. Conversely, some number of people with pre-existing conditions, who chose to avoid hospitals and who did not die as an outcome, could have also died had they visited. I imagine that the people who chose to stay home are in a set where it wasn't obvious that staying home meant death. Thus, I think it was a good bet given what we know about coronavirus complications, spreadability, and virulence.