Severe COVID-19: what if we counted it?
We don't know how many people have the disease that dominates our lives
The last post looked at how the SARS-CoV-2 hospitalization statistic was systematically distorted in Quebec by excluding doubly vaccinated patients from routine testing. Its values are meaningless for a good chunk of 2021 as a result.
When properly collected, this statistic is a close cousin the number of positive test results within the general population, it is a measure of infection within a specific population. What it does not do is indicate people who are in the hospital because they have COVID-19, although it has been consistently misrepresented as such by government and media. For example, just last week CTV falsely announced, “COVID-19 hospitalizations saw a net increase of 188 with 433 patients checking in for COVID-19 treatment and 245 being discharged.” (Emphasis mine.)
With the latest variant infecting so many people inside and outside hospitals and causing mild symptoms of the common cold, the double-life of the hospitalization statistic became unsustainable. Thus, we were finally informed that half the people hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 are there for other reasons.
Mardi, le ministre de la Santé du Québec, Christian Dubé, a indiqué que 50 % des quelque 2800 hospitalisations liées à la COVID-19 sont en fait des personnes asymptomatiques qui ont été détectées lors d’un test fait à leur admission.
The same article notes that hospitalizations have been counted irrespective of COVID-19 severity for as long as they’ve been counted at all. However, the current infection rate of those hospitalized for other causes is surprisingly high and suggests that “le Québec presque en entier serait infecté”—almost all of Quebec may be infected. The article is full of such bombshells, and is well worth reading. It seems to come from a different universe than the one that spawns other recent news items, such as the plans to exclude non-triply-vaccinated customers from Canadian Tire.
While it’s useful to know how many hospital patients test positive for SARS-CoV-2, it’s no more important than knowing how many health care workers are staying home because of a positive test. And in terms of understanding Quebec’s immediate health care crisis, nothing is more important than the number of hospitalizations for all causes. Yet, none of those other numbers are routinely communicated. While daily freedoms in Quebec seem to hang in the balance of SARS-CoV-2 hospitalizations, it’s only because the province fails to collect or report the more relevant statistics.
Severe COVID-19
If we are concerned about severe COVID-19 and its impacts on the health care system, as well as any mitigating effects of vaccination, the principal quantity to monitor must be the severe disease itself. It is incredible that in this stage of the crisis, after two years of upending everyone’s lives, we are not doing that. Hospitals record the results of a viral-detection test, and those numbers are sent forth like the voice of God. But when it comes to severe COVID-19, periodic anecdotes about ventilating unvaccinated patients are supposed to do the job.
So what is severe COVID-19? Many sources dance around this question, preferring to focus on the cold and flu symptoms most people get from the virus, if they have any symptoms at all. But severe COVID-19 exists as a distinct disease—to some uncounted degree—and we’re all in this mess because of it. The AARP, whose membership is actually at risk for severe COVID-19, indicates some symptoms that signal a need for emergency care:
Trouble breathing
Persistent pain or pressure in the chest
New confusion or inability to arouse
Bluish lips or face
If you test positive for SARS-CoV-2 and you have milder symptoms than this, you’re one of the lucky 96-97% who has non-severe COVID-19, a disease that should be of no public interest. And if you do have trouble breathing, you may well be having a panic attack rather than severe COVID-19. That’s reasonable, given we’re told every day that this virus might kill us. WebMD has some tips on distinguishing a panic attack from severe COVID-19.
In any case, hospitals are surely up to the job of diagnosing severe COVID-19. They must be able to distinguish patients with severe COVID-19 from patients who were already so near death that the cold symptoms of the non-severe form of the disease may, like many common respiratory diseases, hasten their end. To ignore these differences in severity would be to deny that the severe and novel form of the disease exists—to endorse the idea that COVID-19 is a hoax and that we have been chasing a cold virus for two years.
If severe COVID-19 hospitalizations were correctly categorized, systematically reporting them to understand the effects of the disease would be a simple matter. Hospitals just need to be asked to do it. Making this determination ad-hoc and occasionally tossing out guesstimated percentages like 40% one week, 50% another, only points to the extent and recklessness of this bureaucratic mistake.
All of the governments that are failing to tabulate severe COVID-19, while using its specter to terrorize the public, must be replaced as quickly as democratically possible. Their incompetence is as staggering as it is destructive.