Around 80% of English hospital admissions with coronavirus are admitted for other reasons
UK, 24th December
Omicron hospital patients, 366
Total omicron deaths, 29
UK, 27th December
Omicron hospital patients, 407
Total omicron deaths, 39
Omicron cases + 45,307
= 159,932
UK, 29th December
Omicron hospital patients,
+ 261 + 98 = 766
Total omicron deaths,
+ 10 + 4 = 53
UK data
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-omicron-daily-overview
https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#levels-over-time
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk
SA data
SA hospital data
https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/surveillance-reports/daily-hospital-surveillance-datcov-report/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa/
US cases and deaths data
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailycases
Isolation down to 5 days is asymptomatic
20% of covid admissions caused by viral complications
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/28/covid-hospital-data-should-treated-caution-many-patients-admitted/
December 21, England
Covid patients in hospital
= 6,245
Up 259 from previous week
Of the 259, just 45 admitted because of the virus
Of the 259, admitted, 214 for other conditions but having also tested positive
“incidental Covid” admissions
Previous week, December 7 to December 14
Majority of hospitalisations were still delta
Primary covid cases were 59% of the 289 weekly rise
People currently in hospital with Covid
“incidental” cases, 1,813 out of 6,245
Highest so far
Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine, Oxford University
This is not the same disease we were seeing a year ago
The horrific scenes that we saw a year ago –
intensive care units being full,
lots of people dying prematurely –
that is now history in my view and I think…that’s likely to continue
Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers
What our guys are saying is that incidental cases are making around 25 to 30 per cent of cases that are arriving,
but that will vary from place to place
In London you would expect to see higher levels
lower in somewhere like the South West, where community infections are lower
They are seeing an increase in the number of hospital admissions
but it’s not precipitous.
It’s not going up in an exponential way
As the number of cases in the community rises, there are significant levels of incidental cases
But we mustn’t forget that having those people in hospital causes complications because of infection control measures
under significant amounts of pressure and are struggling with high numbers of staff absences
More cases of incidental Covid compared to previous waves
Dr Raghib Ali, consultant in acute medicine at Oxford University Hospitals,
There is certainly a smaller proportion of people ending up with Covid pneumonia in intensive care
Probably half the cases I’ve seen are incidentals
You’ve got completely incidental cases,
someone coming in with a broken leg, who also tests positive for Covid,
then a third category of older people who have comorbidities.
Maybe they’ve had a fall or chest pain and also test positive and it’s unclear if the virus is having some sort of impact.
And when the prevalence of a virus with relatively mild symptoms is high in the community then you will see higher incidentals
Similar to Gauteng, with 52% incidentals
Report from Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (May 1 to Dec 24)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10348763/Most-pregnant-women-ventilators-Covid-havent-jab.html
https://www.icnarc.org/our-audit/audits/cmp/reports
Source