Some states reconsidering how they count COVID hospitalizations

WASHINGTON (TND) — A new practice for reporting COVID-19 hospitalizations in Massachusetts may be adopted in other parts of the country.

Starting Monday, the state will begin differentiating between patients who are admitted to a hospital for COVID-19 and those who are admitted for another condition and later test positive for the virus. Doctors often refer to the former as "incidental" COVID admissions.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul last week released the first set of this data for her state. It showed 43% of people in New York hospitals on Jan. 6 who tested positive for the virus were originally there to be treated for something else. In New York City hospitals, it was 51%.

Hochul was careful to not let the separate sets of numbers diminish the severity of the situation.

“The number of people in the hospital for COVID is still high. In fact more than what it had been just before the holidays," Hochul told reporters.

On Sunday, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky told Fox News some of the hospitals they talked to reported 40% of patients with COVID originally came for something else.

University of Buffalo Chief of Infectious Disease Dr. Thomas Russo said if the CDC required all hospitals to report these two sets of hospitalization data, it could offer some clarity on the effects of omicron.

“It will give us sort of a sense in terms of the direct burden of COVID on our hospital system even though both categories do pose a certain increased use in resources and stress on our system to a degree," Russo said, emphasizing that even if an incidental COVID admission patient isn't displaying severe symptoms, their hospitalization shouldn't be written off.

“Because we need to use personal protective equipment in managing that patient. It utilizes resources. They need to be in certain rooms. We can’t co-house them with other individuals," Russo said.

Russo said the most important data to look at is the capacity of the country's hospitals, specifically intensive care units.

“Regardless of the cause, if our healthcare systems get overwhelmed the care of the patients and the outcomes are gonna be worse," Russo said.