This April 5, 2020, rows of patient bed files are displayed in a field military hospital at Seattle’s CenturyLink Field Event Center in April. (Photo AP / Ted S. Warren, file)
An article in the current Atlantic issue questions probably the most appalling figures of the COVID pandemic: the number of COVID patients hospitalized.
Right now, in Washington state, that figure stands at approximately 6,500 COVID-like hospitalizations over the last full week recorded, below a few days ago, but significantly higher than all previous peaks. Which seems pretty scary.
But is that so?
Because we do not know any of the details of these cases, only the raw numbers.
So a group of experts decided to find out how many of these hospitalizations are actually due to COVID.
The article in the Atlantic, written by David Zweig, is based on a new study of 50,000 admissions to VA hospitals. The researchers chose the VA because each patient undergoes a COVID test, so we know for sure who did it.
The VA data also made it possible to order these patients according to the degree of disease they had, following the oxygen levels in the blood, so that they had an objective measure of who was seriously ill and who was not.
And that’s what they found.
The figures showed that last year, in 2020, before the vaccine and before Delta, 36% of patients with COVID were only slightly ill or had no symptoms of COVID.
The researchers examined this year’s figures (January to June) and found that the percentage of non-serious COVID was even higher, close to 50%.
This would mean that approximately half of the patients whose cases ended up being part of the COVID statistics were either not very ill or were admitted for a reason not mainly due to COVID.
The numbers on the dashboard grouped the mild cases with the deadly cases, which would tend to exaggerate the danger.
So there’s some fuel for skeptics. But the same study also showed much better results for vaccinated patients rather than unvaccinated patients, which would provide ammunition to vaccine enthusiasts. Because, although vaccinated people may find themselves ENTERING the hospital alongside unvaccinated people, the study confirms that they are much more likely to LEAVE the hospital alive and well.
And that’s the other thing the board numbers don’t show: that since the vaccine appeared, the number of serious hospitalizations has dropped dramatically.
I’m not sure which side of the debate will get the most points here, but finding out that half of the people hospitalized for COVID (at least in VA hospitals) have mild symptoms or none means that there are many more people to go home to. their families. And that … is good.
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