Distinct Issues with COVID-19 – Orange County Registry

It seems like a long time ago everything stopped working to flatten the curve. But since then, state and county officials have used a review of cases, hospitalizations and deaths to guide their policy responses.

Mortality and hospitalization are probably the best metrics because they give people a sense of how serious they are, and running on a hospital bed can affect whether people get care.

While the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations is on the rise, the public has recently learned that many of them are random, meaning that patients go to the hospital for other things, get tested, and get to know themselves. have COVID.

The numbers may be accurate in a sense, but they are wildly misleading without context. As reported by Calmatters last week, “approximately two-thirds of COVID-positive patients at hospitals operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health have been hospitalized for something other than the virus. Marin County hospitals on Monday had a record 19 COVID-19 patients — but at least 42% were random cases. And Berkeley is experiencing an ‘extraordinary’ increase in cases, but only three residents have been hospitalized with COVID-19 in the past month. “

While positive cases are on the rise, the actual number of COVID-related hospital admissions has decreased significantly from a year ago, as have deaths, which suggests that common variants are less common. more virulent and the vaccine is working to prevent serious outcomes from COVID-19.

While not without real challenges, we are in a vastly different time than we were at the beginning of the pandemic.

This editorial team has consistently emphasized personal responsibility throughout the pandemic and over the past year and the importance of vaccination as a tool to reduce the harm of COVID-19.

Fortunately, we are at a point where most people have chosen to be vaccinated and where new, effective treatments are increasingly available.

Therefore, governments should show restraint when imposing further restrictions from this point on. It’s very important to get through this devastating period of history and get back to normal.