4 ms·

So their argument is: everyone is already infected, it's no big deal? Whereas the actual questions are: why are people going into hospital without having a Cov

by mavhc 5y ago

So their argument is: everyone is already infected, it's no big deal? Whereas the actual questions are: why are people going into hospital without having a Covid test first (assuming non emergency) And: What percentage of the people who tested positive in the previous 14 days in hospital because of Covid. And what percentage of the people who weren't tested went to hospital because of Covid related symptoms.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cwp 5y ago
Yeah, those are the right questions. The point of the article is that people who go to the hospital for non-Covid reasons - eg, broken leg, heart attack, cancer - and then test positive are being counted as "hospitalized with Covid" even though they don't have a severe case. So the statistics are being skewed. We don't really know by how much, because the article doesn't say how many went to the hospital for Covid-related symptoms.
- simonh 5y ago
  Well, the you've got to differentiate what are covid related symptoms and what aren't. A lot of people with Covid, as with many such diseases, actually die of something else. Hence the "nobody ever died of covid, it was all because of pre-existing conditions" conspiracy theory. The fact is it probably doesn't matter all that much. Anyway who gets to decide what is covid related or not? How do you ensure consistent application of selection criteria across teams and hospitals? When your hospitals are filling to capacity with wheezing, coughing patients on ventilators the fact your numbers are off by a bit is by the by, and your medical staff have enough to deal with. Anyway wouldn't this policy over-count patients who'd got vaccinated, went to hospital for an unrelated reason, but then tested positive for covid? After all, you can still catch covid if you're vaccinated, you just get to fight it off quicker. Most likely the statistical impact of all these factors isn't all that much though.
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
More actual questions: - how soon after exposure do you test positive (eg. if they went to the hospital, tested negative, then tested positive later there - were they undetectably positive on the first test, or did they catch it in the hospital). - Why do we not separate hospitalized "by" and "with" covid (and same for deaths). If half of the hospitalized are there because of broken legs and appendicitis, they'd be there, covid or not. Same with deaths, if you get hit by a bus and die, 20 days after a positive test, you're counted as a covid death.
- simonh 5y ago
  Half the patients in hospitals over-run with covid patients are not there with broken legs and appendicitis. That's absurd. The numbers of such people are going to be reasonably well understood. This is why excess hospitalisations and deaths compared to seasonal norms are used as a reality check on the test numbers. Newspaper headlines might trumped specific numbers that are attention grabbing, but actual policy is driven by an assessment of all the available data.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    But half of those people are there with broken legs and apendicitis. Only half of those stats are due to covid. As an invidual, every person in a hospital is too much... but when considering lockdowns, because there are (eg.) a 1000 people with covid in hospitals, it's worth to know if those people are there because of covid, or 560 of them would be there normally.
  - nradov 5y ago
    In Santa Clara County COVID-19 deaths were originally over counted by 22% before they adjusted the methodology. Other public health agencies have had similar data quality problems. So not half, but a significant fraction. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/07/02/santa-clara-county-revises-covid-death-toll-down/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/07/02/santa-clara-cou...
BoxOfRain 5y ago
>why are people going into hospital without having a Covid test first (assuming non emergency) The truth is that once you put aside the creepy fawning nationalism around the NHS it's actually got some serious systemic issues that never get properly resolved because it's a political football. It's not "joined up" very well at all, at least in my experience paperwork cockups are pretty much universal. The clinical staff are fantastic for the most part but the way it's administered and organised is almost comically dysfunctional. It's damn-near impossible to actually pin down an NHS service to a concrete date or time to get anything done in my experience, in some cases you just get ignored unless you specifically know that you have to chase them up yourself. I ended up going private at my own expense and the conspiracy theorist in me reckons that's probably the ultimate aim: let the service rot to the point anyone who can afford it will jump ship for the private sector. I have a lot of respect for the people on the ground at the NHS, lions led by donkeys indeed.
- rocgf 5y ago
  > let the service rot to the point anyone who can afford it will jump ship for the private sector I think that's pretty far-fetched and can't see a good reason for this purposefully being the case. It's just Hanlon's razor, really.
  - BoxOfRain 5y ago
    There's enough private healthcare interests with links to the Conservative Party to at least make it worth raising an eyebrow in my opinion. I'm not making any specific allegations but it wouldn't be the first time Conservative Party ministers got in bed with private interests, the PPE scandal of last year comes to mind for example. You're right of course though, passive incompetence is probably more likely than active malice.
    - j_walter 5y ago
      > passive incompetence is probably more likely than active malice. Well this is pretty much the norm at most levels of government around the world. There are no real performance indicators being used to judge accomplishments or effectiveness for most government jobs.

by mavhc 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

cwp 5y ago

Yeah, those are the right questions. The point of the article is that people who go to the hospital for non-Covid reasons - eg, broken leg, heart attack, cancer - and then test positive are being counted as "hospitalized with Covid" even though they don't have a severe case. So the statistics are being skewed. We don't really know by how much, because the article doesn't say how many went to the hospital for Covid-related symptoms.

simonh 5y ago
Well, the you've got to differentiate what are covid related symptoms and what aren't. A lot of people with Covid, as with many such diseases, actually die of something else. Hence the "nobody ever died of covid, it was all because of pre-existing conditions" conspiracy theory. The fact is it probably doesn't matter all that much. Anyway who gets to decide what is covid related or not? How do you ensure consistent application of selection criteria across teams and hospitals? When your hospitals are filling to capacity with wheezing, coughing patients on ventilators the fact your numbers are off by a bit is by the by, and your medical staff have enough to deal with. Anyway wouldn't this policy over-count patients who'd got vaccinated, went to hospital for an unrelated reason, but then tested positive for covid? After all, you can still catch covid if you're vaccinated, you just get to fight it off quicker. Most likely the statistical impact of all these factors isn't all that much though.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

More actual questions: - how soon after exposure do you test positive (eg. if they went to the hospital, tested negative, then tested positive later there - were they undetectably positive on the first test, or did they catch it in the hospital). - Why do we not separate hospitalized "by" and "with" covid (and same for deaths). If half of the hospitalized are there because of broken legs and appendicitis, they'd be there, covid or not. Same with deaths, if you get hit by a bus and die, 20 days after a positive test, you're counted as a covid death.

simonh 5y ago
Half the patients in hospitals over-run with covid patients are not there with broken legs and appendicitis. That's absurd. The numbers of such people are going to be reasonably well understood. This is why excess hospitalisations and deaths compared to seasonal norms are used as a reality check on the test numbers. Newspaper headlines might trumped specific numbers that are attention grabbing, but actual policy is driven by an assessment of all the available data.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  But half of those people are there with broken legs and apendicitis. Only half of those stats are due to covid. As an invidual, every person in a hospital is too much... but when considering lockdowns, because there are (eg.) a 1000 people with covid in hospitals, it's worth to know if those people are there because of covid, or 560 of them would be there normally.
- nradov 5y ago
  In Santa Clara County COVID-19 deaths were originally over counted by 22% before they adjusted the methodology. Other public health agencies have had similar data quality problems. So not half, but a significant fraction. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/07/02/santa-clara-county-revises-covid-death-toll-down/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/07/02/santa-clara-cou...

BoxOfRain 5y ago

>why are people going into hospital without having a Covid test first (assuming non emergency) The truth is that once you put aside the creepy fawning nationalism around the NHS it's actually got some serious systemic issues that never get properly resolved because it's a political football. It's not "joined up" very well at all, at least in my experience paperwork cockups are pretty much universal. The clinical staff are fantastic for the most part but the way it's administered and organised is almost comically dysfunctional. It's damn-near impossible to actually pin down an NHS service to a concrete date or time to get anything done in my experience, in some cases you just get ignored unless you specifically know that you have to chase them up yourself. I ended up going private at my own expense and the conspiracy theorist in me reckons that's probably the ultimate aim: let the service rot to the point anyone who can afford it will jump ship for the private sector. I have a lot of respect for the people on the ground at the NHS, lions led by donkeys indeed.

rocgf 5y ago
> let the service rot to the point anyone who can afford it will jump ship for the private sector I think that's pretty far-fetched and can't see a good reason for this purposefully being the case. It's just Hanlon's razor, really.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  There's enough private healthcare interests with links to the Conservative Party to at least make it worth raising an eyebrow in my opinion. I'm not making any specific allegations but it wouldn't be the first time Conservative Party ministers got in bed with private interests, the PPE scandal of last year comes to mind for example. You're right of course though, passive incompetence is probably more likely than active malice.
  - j_walter 5y ago
    > passive incompetence is probably more likely than active malice. Well this is pretty much the norm at most levels of government around the world. There are no real performance indicators being used to judge accomplishments or effectiveness for most government jobs.