How COVID hospitalizations are reported is changing in one state. Will others follow?
How many COVID-19 patients are in the hospital because of the virus — and how many just tested positive while they are there for unrelated issues?
Although the numbers aren’t readily available nationwide as of Jan. 10, Massachusetts is changing how it reports those hospitalizations as the omicron coronavirus variant — believed to be milder than past variants — continues to spread.
Beginning Jan. 10, Massachusetts hospitals are setting apart records of how many patients are hospitalized for COVID-19 and how many patients test positive after being admitted to the hospital for a separate health issue, according to CBS Boston.
State Rep. Jon Santiago, a Boston Medical Center emergency room doctor, said in a Jan. 3 Twitter thread that “a significant number of my COVID patients fell into 2 buckets: mild symptoms & discharged OR were admitted for non-COVID reasons BUT tested positive for COVID (all admitted patients are tested).”
“The fact that many patients weren’t primarily admitted FOR COVID but rather for other medical issues should add nuance to the ‘COVID hospitalization’ numbers,” Santiago added, noting that “this shouldn’t take away from the bed crunch we face.”
Other doctors have noticed a change in the nature of COVID-19 hospitalizations .
“Right now, we have just over 100 people on the regular medical floors who have a COVID diagnosis, but only 18 or so in the ICU, so that’s about a 5-1 ratio,” Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told NBC Boston. “That was very different at the start of the epidemic, where it was more one to one.”
There were more than 26,000 new COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts as of Jan. 6, according to state’s Department of Public Health data, along with 2,637 COVID-19 patient hospitalizations.
The department announced the change in hospitalization reporting on Jan. 6, according to State House News Service.
In a statement to McClatchy News, a Massachusetts DPH spokesperson said the data on hospitalizations began to be collected on Jan. 10 but it won’t be reported “just yet.”
The switch comes after neighboring New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul announced how the state has also asked its hospitals to acknowledge those distinctions during a Jan. 3 news conference.
“How many people are being hospitalized because of COVID symptoms?” Hochul asked. “How many people are happened to be testing positive just while they’re in there for other treatments.”
“Yes, the sheer numbers of people infected are high,” she continued, “but I want to see whether or not the hospitalizations correlate with that.”
In New York’s hospitals, more than 11,700 were there for COVID-19 as of Jan. 9, Hochul announced.
Two days prior, the governor shared “early” numbers on COVID-19 hospitalizations distinguishing between those admitted for the virus and those who tested positive during their hospital stay spurred by another reason.
Hochul said early data on Jan. 4 showed “39% of the people (who tested positive) are hospitalized with non-COVID related reasons” in New York and data for Jan. 6 showed 42% of people who tested positive were admitted under the same circumstances.
However, Hochul acknowledged those numbers were a statewide average as COVID-19 hospitalizations vary in different areas such as New York City where “half of the hospitalizations” are for “someone who needs to be there because of the severity of their COVID situation and the other half are there for other reasons.”
Throughout the U.S., more than 60.1 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Jan. 10, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The highly infectious omicron variant is dominating positive cases as 95.4% of cases were attributed to the variant during Dec. 26 through Jan. 1, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data estimates. The data is updated every Tuesday.
Just 4.6% of U.S. cases during that period were identified as the delta variant.
The CEO of Pfizer said that a vaccine for the omicron variant and other variants will be available in March, according CNBC.
This story was originally published January 10, 2022 at 12:28 PM with the headline "How COVID hospitalizations are reported is changing in one state. Will others follow?."
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