Covid cases rising again in Quebec
Covid cases and hospitalizations are rising in Quebec although the trend is mostly outside Montreal this time.
After Quebec crossed a threshold of 20 infections per million people this week, a line it previously described as serious, it moved the goalposts. Quebec should have 170 new cases or less per week to be safe; we’re now over 200.
David63 18:21 on 2020-09-11 Permalink
Not clear if the increase in positive test results signifies an increase in risk to public health, or just reflects increasing testing, which is catching asymptomatic cases that went undiagnosed when testing was less pervasive. You look at the hospitalizations, running at ~100 total.provincewide for the past month or whatever, and it’s looking like these new cases are far less severe than before, so that the relative value – measured as a health system use dollar or fraction of a death or whatever – of a positive test is far lower.
Basically, seems pretty clear that in June a positive result had once value as relates to extrapolatable deaths/other negative health outcomes, and that value associated with the positive result had changed significantly. Back then, it might have been 15 positive tests corresponded to 1 hospitalization, but that now it’s 60 to 1.
Basically, a positive development.
Ian 13:58 on 2020-09-12 Permalink
That’s not true.
“When testing is common, those with a lower probability of testing positive also receive tests (e.g., asymptomatic people). Thus there are diminishing returns for detecting positive cases as the # of tests goes up, assuming the underlying outbreak remains the same size.
But the underlying outbreak is not remaining the same size. It’s growing. And it ain’t just because of the testing.”
https://twitter.com/JPSoucy/status/1303682089112530945
But more importantly, since you claim that more cases does not necessarily mean more hospitalizations so who cares, I quote Aaron Derfel who has been following the stats very carefully as you may be aware:
” If the hospitalizations were to continue to rise, this would signal a disturbing turn for the worse in the #pandemic, but it’s too early to draw conclusions. Still, at least one Montreal hospital is recording more new #COVID hospitalizations than it has in weeks.
The hospital (I’m afraid I was asked not to disclose its name yet by a source), admitted four patients Thursday. Last week, it admitted eight. What’s noteworthy is about half the patients were not admitted for #COVID but other reasons, and they tested positive in hospital.
These latest developments underscore the #pandemic’s utter unpredictability, and are cause for concern and greater vigilance. Yet the Quebec government appears to want to wait for more #COVID outbreaks before imposing any more restrictions. ”
https://twitter.com/Aaron_Derfel/status/1304608182673833984
Tee Owe 09:12 on 2020-09-13 Permalink
If someone is admitted to hospital and subsequently found to be Covid-positive, is that really a ‘Covid hospitalization’? I mean, it’s not why they went into hospital.
Since I’m here, I wonder whether we should be more consistent with use of the word ‘case’. A case of the flu is usually diagnosed as symptoms and maybe a doctor’s OK that that’s probably what it is. AFAIK we don’t routinely test for flu eg by throat swabs, PCR or antibody tests. However, a case of Covid is a positive PCR from a throat or nasal swab, regardless whether there are symptoms. Can be misleading when discussing relative numbers of cases of flu vs Covid, no?
Anybody know more about this?