> In certain jurisdictions, though, we’ve met or exceeded last winter’s hospitalization peak. We can see this in many states in the Northeast, including New York.
When presented with a new source, I tend to judge people based on their perspectives on things I know about. This one is a case study in being misleading, while not technically lying. New York state has only "met" last winter's hospitalization peak if you look at trend lines. If you look at hospitalizations per day, we clearly haven't. Also, of course, "last winter's peak" was not really any sort of stress for the hospital system at all (compare to the spring 2020 wave, which was), and it happened at a time when things were much more restricted than they are now:
...but it's still misleading, because again, this is a fraction of previous waves in NYC, but also, a lot of these hospitalizations are going to ERs for testing. Government officials are pleading people to stop going to the hospital for trivial things:
I don't know if she is intentionally trying to mislead, or just doesn't have a good handle on the data, but this is the sort of thing that makes me skeptical of a person's other claims.
> But it's still misleading, because a lot of these hospitalizations are going to ERs for testing.
I don't think this is correct. Going to the ER is not the same as being admitted to the hospital. From everything I've read, ER visits are not counted as hospitalizations anywhere.
> Hospitalization counts reflect the total number of people with COVID-19 ever admitted to a hospital, not the number of people currently admitted.
If you go to the ER and make it to a treatment area, you're admitted. These are bright-line distinctions. Nobody is making judgment calls on the data ("did this person really get admitted, or is it just someone in the ER for an hour? Let me look at the chart!") at this level of analysis.
Really? Is this a NYC thing? Any hospital I’ve ever been in has considered the ER an outpatient service, and you are only admitted to the hospital if they transfer you from the ER to inpatient care. Do they consider other outpatient services, like, say, yearly physicals, an admission as well?
I can't speak to outpatient services, but hospitals report this data, and make the call. The government doesn't do it -- which is what you'd expect. It's hard and slow to make case-by-case judgment calls when you're far from the source data. Hospitals, in turn, don't spend any more time than is absolutely required making these kinds of classifications, unless someone makes them do it.
It would not surprise me at all to find that other cities/states have the same thing happening.
> In certain jurisdictions, though, we’ve met or exceeded last winter’s hospitalization peak. We can see this in many states in the Northeast, including New York.
When presented with a new source, I tend to judge people based on their perspectives on things I know about. This one is a case study in being misleading, while not technically lying. New York state has only "met" last winter's hospitalization peak if you look at trend lines. If you look at hospitalizations per day, we clearly haven't. Also, of course, "last winter's peak" was not really any sort of stress for the hospital system at all (compare to the spring 2020 wave, which was), and it happened at a time when things were much more restricted than they are now:
https://covid-19.direct/state/36
The statement is more correct for NYC data, where hospitals have exceeded last winter's peak on a trend-line and per-day basis:
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-totals.pag...
...but it's still misleading, because again, this is a fraction of previous waves in NYC, but also, a lot of these hospitalizations are going to ERs for testing. Government officials are pleading people to stop going to the hospital for trivial things:
https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1478353835793997827
I don't know if she is intentionally trying to mislead, or just doesn't have a good handle on the data, but this is the sort of thing that makes me skeptical of a person's other claims.