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Thanks! > mortality has dropped among hospitalized patients by 18 percentage points since the pandemic began. Patients in the study had a 25.6% chance of dying

Thanks! > mortality has dropped among hospitalized patients by 18 percentage points since the pandemic began. Patients in the study had a 25.6% chance of dying at the start of the pandemic; they now have a 7.6% chance. It's strange to phraseit like that; I would have phrased it as "mortality has dropped by a factor of 3"

OJFord 6y ago
I prefer the original - it tells me that 18% of all hospitalised patients are alive today where they would not have been before. Yours tells me 2/3 of them that were dying are no longer, but it puts me on edge like I might be being baited into clicking - a 2/3 drop isn't necessarily impressive, like in normal times if 0.5% of ED patients are dying, dropping by a factor of three might just be the difference between a good and bad month. 18pp is always a big chunk (~1/5) of the total, it's notable whether the starting point was 90% or 20%.
- astrophysician 6y ago
  hmm..I see your point but I'm not sure I agree, saying 2/3 of people that otherwise would have died are no longer is tailored to the problem. E.g. if mortality rate from all covid infections went from 0.1% -> 0.001%, thats incredibly impressive and important since the mortality is now 1% of what it was, meaning 99% of deaths are being avoided but "the mortality rate went down by 0.099%" sounds small and insignificant.
  - petschge 6y ago
    Which is why it is good to give absolute risks before and after a change. That way you can easily compute and judge both absolute risk reductions and risk ratios.
  - LudwigNagasena 6y ago
    That’s because people mess up percentages and percentage points all the time.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  But their odds of being hospitalized in the first place have also dropped dramatically, so their "odds of dying" dropped even further.
- jpambrun 6y ago
  With the 18% figure I need to know the starting point to get the picture. It could still be 82% or all the way down to 0%. Three fold increase in survivability is more informative.

OJFord 6y ago

I prefer the original - it tells me that 18% of all hospitalised patients are alive today where they would not have been before. Yours tells me 2/3 of them that were dying are no longer, but it puts me on edge like I might be being baited into clicking - a 2/3 drop isn't necessarily impressive, like in normal times if 0.5% of ED patients are dying, dropping by a factor of three might just be the difference between a good and bad month. 18pp is always a big chunk (~1/5) of the total, it's notable whether the starting point was 90% or 20%.

astrophysician 6y ago
hmm..I see your point but I'm not sure I agree, saying 2/3 of people that otherwise would have died are no longer is tailored to the problem. E.g. if mortality rate from all covid infections went from 0.1% -> 0.001%, thats incredibly impressive and important since the mortality is now 1% of what it was, meaning 99% of deaths are being avoided but "the mortality rate went down by 0.099%" sounds small and insignificant.
- petschge 6y ago
  Which is why it is good to give absolute risks before and after a change. That way you can easily compute and judge both absolute risk reductions and risk ratios.
- LudwigNagasena 6y ago
  That’s because people mess up percentages and percentage points all the time.
chrisco255 6y ago
But their odds of being hospitalized in the first place have also dropped dramatically, so their "odds of dying" dropped even further.
jpambrun 6y ago
With the 18% figure I need to know the starting point to get the picture. It could still be 82% or all the way down to 0%. Three fold increase in survivability is more informative.