Hospital data and care cannot be trusted

When we hear about high numbers of COVID deaths in hospitals what is not clear is whether they have died from COVID or the other medical problems they went to the hospital for. It seems that COVID deaths are being greatly overblown, especially compared to data from other countries. Once a patient has incidental COVID and dies, that death is classed as a COVID death.

The truth is we cannot trust any of the COVID hospital data for the number of cases or deaths.

It is true that some reporters and pundits have claimed that this picture is overly pessimistic because the hospitalization numbers include people who are simply hospitalized with COVID, rather than for COVID. These “incidental” patients who just happen to test positive while being treated for something else clearly inflate numbers and explain why hospital ICUs are jammed up. But they may not be in the ICU because of COVID.

In some places, the proportion of such cases seems high. UC San Francisco recently said a third of its COVID patients “are admitted for other reasons,” while the Jackson Health System in Florida put that proportion at half. In New York State, COVID “was not included as one of the reasons for admission” for 43 percent of the hospitalized people who have tested positive. There are stories from physicians that in some hospitals the number is as high as 70%.

HawkTheSlayer wrote:Cut out the covid related, death "rewards" and covid will magically dissappear.