By Tony O’Riley-
Serious questions are arising after inflated statistics associated with hospitalisation figures in connection with the omicron variant were revealed this week.
Parents and children in many parts of the country discuss the pandemic when at home alone.
My girlfriend’s young 4 year old son yesterday asked ” mummy are many people in hospital because of this virus?
She told me she responded that ” some are, but I don’t think we are being told the whole truth for some reason. Many of these patients are actually in hospital for another reason, but once they are tested positive for covid, the add the numbers on to statistics”. Why?, he asked. ” I don’t know, I think they get confused because even though they have other serious illnesses, they also have this naughty virus”., she replied.
”Will the virus go away”, he asked. Yes, she replied. When? I think by the end of January, maybe February, she replied.
Other children will be asking the same questions too, the older ones around 10 have their own opinion. .
Statistics associated with hospitalisation rates appear to be deliberately misrepresented by some hospitals, carelessly misrepresented by the media, or deliberately misrepresented by sections of the media. The mistrust of official numbers has been going on for a while, like an unspoken game between the public, the media, and the government.
First, we heard that Covid deaths numbers had been tampered with that you could have got run over by a bus and had Covid put on your death certificate just because you had tested positive for it last week.
Government ministers must have known this last christmas when they all decided to have parties whilst many of us were locked up at home not seeing our families. There was the saying a few months ago that ‘I was not allowed to see my granny, but Matt Hancock could lick fxxxx”.
The growing disregard for the public that saw one rule for us and another for them. But the supposed scientists and fearmongers continue to push for restrictions based on lies or at the very list, confusion.
Confusion over whether hospital attendance of patients with other underlying illnesses later discovered to have Covid-19, results from the omicron variant or its trigger of the preexisting illnesses has muddied the waters for quite a while. News outlets jump on the bandwagon as though the public are fools, with the exception a select few that understand what it means to be truthful and trusted.
The concerning revelation from the Mail Online that up to two thirds patients who had arrived in hospital due to mental health issues and heart attack had been added to statistics associated with the omicron variant once they tested positive for Covid-19, begs the question of how wide spread such misrepresentations may be in the Uk, and more frightingly, in other parts of the world.
The recent media frenzy about increased infections in the Uk, including hospitalization rates continues to alarm many of the elderly and ordinary people of the Uk- the most vulnerable high among those most concerned about sustained news about the virus.
The latest revelation that the statistics associated with patients being hospitalised due to the omicron variant has been inaccurate raises questions as to why inaccuracies at that level continues to be reported by sections of the British press without respite, or any in depth investigation.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the council at the British Medical Association, told Sky News there are “significant increases in people in hospital” with COVID-19, and that visitors had been suspended from hospital because of the rise of covid patients, but when asked whether the patients had been there mainly because of the coronavirus or other health reasons, the doctor responded that he couldn’t answer that question.
However, before the solid question came the medical doctor had been singing about hospitalisation rates becoming so high that visitors were no longer allowed to see their loved ones.
Statistics are put together by the Nhs , with hospitalisation rates determined by patients in hospital who test positive with Covid-19, but did not necessarily arrive in hospital because of the omicron variant.
Analysts keeping track of the pandemic have concluded that higher rates of infections song about everyday may simply be evidence of increased rates of testing.
Increased rates of hospitalisations so far appear to be a reflection of increased testing in hospitals.
A flip side to the whole argument is that where positive tests are rising significantly across the country, the chances of increased infections spreading to affect those with underlying issues and them becoming hospitalised as a result potentially rises.
Press representative of Hommerton, Mark Purcell, told The Eye Of Media.Com that the hospital tests every patient who comes in, adding that ”half of the patients who are unvaccinated are very ill with covid”
”Just three weeks ago only 8 of our patients had covid-19, but that number has risen from 8 to 70. Those who have covid will be cared for in the red areas- in other words they are taken straight into the ICU.
Determining whether patients are in hospital because of the influence of Covid -19, or whether they are in hospital because of another serious illness, but happen to have the omicron variant of Covid can be tricky.
Once patients in hospital test positive for Covid, the general view taking by the Nhs is that the Covid has played a role in why they are in hospital, without any analysis of the role their other illness may have had in putting them in hospital.
Patterns in the none vaccination status of those who have tested positive for Covid-19 often adds to the assumption that those patients in hospital with other illnesses have actually been hospitalised by Covid-19, even when it could simply be that they are none vaccinated patients who have been infected with the virus.
Hospital staff can be forgiven for concluding that these patients have found themselves in hospital because of the omicron variant and not their other illness, but conclusions of this type should depend on how often the patient normally ends up in hospital, or how likely they were to end up in hospital.
Across the UK 183,037 daily cases were reported in the latest figures, with over 900,000 cases reported over the last seven days – up 41.4% on the week before.
There were 57 people reported to have died within 28 days of a positive Covid test on Wednesday and 516 deaths over the last week – 34.1% lower than the previous seven days.
However, deaths and hospitalisations are both slower to show up in the Covid data, often following rising case numbers after a few weeks.