The Germans wrote up a 'rule' on Covid and the hospitalization rate....which has been in effect for at least six months. It was supposed to give you an idea of people who got Covid, but stayed home and were what you'd call just plain Covid. The other crowd....the extreme cases....were the ones referred to a hospital ICU sitution.
So yesterday, this came out (via Focus). It's another mathematical standard that wasn't completely understood.
When you hear the term 'hospitalization rate'....it was meant as a warning number of a significant number of people who were in the hospital instead of doing home rest.
Well....the hospitalization rate was developed for people who required the hospital admittance, who'd been infected in the past seven days. If you were infected (tested) on day one, and stayed home for 8 days...you weren't listed on the hospitalization rate. If you'd been pushed into the hospital seven days or less after infection is discovered...you were counted. Eight days or more....you weren't counted.
So the hospitalization rate number is worthless?
I can think of several different scenarios where it's pretty much useless.
Example: 'Johan' feels bad on day one (Friday) and gets tested by his doctor on Monday (day four), and gets the results on day five (Tuesday). Doing home-rest/quarantine, around Friday (day eight), Johan is in a fairly weakened state (maybe dehydration is creeping in), and the doctor calls for an ambulance. Over the weekend (day nine/ten), Johan gets better. Late on day twelve (Tuesday), the doctor signs off an exit slip....he's been tested and no longer carries Covid. On day thirteen (Wed), Johan walks out. He was never on the hospitalization rate group. To be honest, out of the 13 total days.....he was only in the hospital for six days.
What happens now with the hospitalization rate? I would imagine it has to change, or be re-worded in some fashion.
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