Bacon's Rebellion

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COVID-19 Update: Hospitalizations Way Up

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Another day, another increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations. The Virginia Department of Health data indicated that 126 patients were hospitalized yesterday — a one-day record in the Old Dominion — bringing total hospitalizations to 1,422.

According to Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA), there are now 820 patients in hospitals confirmed to have COVID-19, while another 499 have tests pending. Only 39 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday.

Bacon’s Rebellion has stopped displaying the count of “confirmed cases,” which we have concluded are worthless as an indicator of the spread of COVID-19. The number published by the VDH is more a function of the volume of testing that is occurring rather than the prevalence of the disease, and testing in Virginia, like most places in the U.S., is grossly inadequate.

I’d like to publish more data, but I’m pressed for time today. Family matters to attend to.

— JAB

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4 responses to “COVID-19 Update: Hospitalizations Way Up”

  1. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    Linked in below is an INVALUABLE guide to saving people at home from dying and/or having to be hospitalized from Coved-19 virus. This guide is highly detailed, authoritative, and practical. A must read in any case now for planning purposes, download and save guide for the future if you don’t have Coved-19 now.

    See; https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/19/what-i-learned-from-nursing-my-husband-through-covid-19/

  2. Acbar Avatar
    Acbar

    “The number published by the VDH is . . . worthless as an indicator of the spread of COVID-19.” Glad to see that recognition is sinking in more broadly. I too would like to see the current restrictions relaxed in the manner of, e.g., Texas — but the level of testing in Virginia (which you label, accurately, as”grossly inadequate”) is going to remain the chief impediment to getting Virginia’s economy on the mend. This must become a priority in Richmond or we will all pay a huge price for Northam’s neglect.

    1. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
      Reed Fawell 3rd

      Likely there are lots more of this stuff that now has gotten out of the bag to spread than would have been the case otherwise, thus creating a larger base of invisible infections below the surface than might otherwise have occurred, and having the festered and spread more of itself to other people, will soon manifest in significantly more serous cases, hospitalizations, and deaths than otherwise would have occurred. Meanwhile there have been false signals creating false sense of security to many, including Jim who was fooled.

  3. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    In Bacon’s Rebellion post, “Did Shoddy Science Shut down America, posted on April 11, 2020.” I commented this in reply to virginiagal2

    “You are dead wrong. And that is why scientists cannot be fully trusted in any case, but particularly with public policy.

    Nor generals, and admirals, with war, who also are modelers, including some of world’s best.

    Translation: the more you really know and learn, the more you appreciate how little you know, and thus you avoid our default state as humans, that of a fool.”

    Nine day’s later, today, April 20th, the Wall Street Journal confirmed this comment in its article on page 6 titled “Modelers Grapple with the Unknown,” by BY MAX COLCHESTER.

    Here is opening:

    “LONDON—Politicians and government officials trying to chart a course through the global coronavirus pandemic have relied heavily on a specialized set of epidemiological experts: disease modelers.

    As they make decisions affecting the health and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of citizens, world leaders have turned to projections of infections and deaths by these scientists, who by their own admission are working with a bewildering array of unknowns as they build their forecasts.

    Some leading modelers say their discipline is being asked to provide a level of certainty that it is unrealistic to expect, especially given how little is known about the new corona-virus. And they fear that they could become scapegoats for politically unpopular policies.

    “Any model that gets within 50% of the actual result has done well,” says Keith Neal, a professor in the epidemiology of infectious diseases at the University of Nottingham. “It is not an exact science.” …. End quote.

    For more see today’s Wall Street Journal.

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