Could someone who understands medical statistics explain why they don't seem to be reporting numbers discharged from hospital/recovered ?
They are. But they need to be taken with something of a pinch of salt.
A quick lesson in statistics: they only mean what they say they mean if the are compiled with robust and consistent methodology. In a situation like this, the environment does not lend itself to this, so the statistics will reflect the conditions of the crisis too. You always need to be mindful of this.
It can't be stressed enough how unreliable and political the stats are and how comparing early stats in the crisis with stats later on isn't necessarily comparing like for like.
A lengthy explainer with examples:
We know that there has been a massive bed shortage which has affected how China has handled the crisis and reported cases.
So in terms of the outcomes of who got sick early on and what happened to them - whether they have died, recovered or are still sick we need to be mindful that the later data is not necessarily including the early cases.
There may be people discharged from hospital who are not fully recovered and may not be classed as such simply to free up beds for those who are more sick. These people might just disappear from the stats unrecorded as either dead, critical or recovered at this point. They would have a status of 'unknown'. We don't know methodology so we don't know if this is the case.
The lack of bed definitely needs to be thought of in terms of official diagnosis. They have been deliberately preventing official diagnosis, in part because they have no beds to admit them to.
If there is a massive shortage of hospital beds for those who are severely ill and were not being counted officially until admitted to hospital, you'd expect the numbers of severely ill to have large disproportionate jumps as new beds were opened. This isn't necessarily reflecting an increase in the number of sick due to the infection spreading exponentially, just the number of officially recognised sick. Which does very much backup the claims of massive underreporting by the state. These new beds are not being filled gradually but immediately, and probably not with people with mild symptoms but people who are very sick.
Here's the numbers for the last three updates
3rd Feb
- 426 fatalities
- 2,654 in serious/critical condition
- 576 recovered
4th Feb
- 492 fatalities (+66) (+15%)
- 3,219 in serious/critical condition (+565)(+21%)
- 900 recovered (+324) (+56%)
5th Feb
- 564 fatalities (+72) (+14%)
- 3,614 in serious/critical condition (+395) (+12%)
- 1030 recovered (+130)(14%)
6th Feb
- 635 fatalities (+71)
- 4,664 in serious/critical condition (+1050) (+28%)
- 1337 recovered (+307)(+29%)
Look at the huge rise of reported severely ill today.
Is it reporting more people getting sick or more people being reported as sick as new beds become available?
As soon as new beds are available, they sounds like they have been filled. If that's the case, you would wonder how many deaths have been 'off radar' too. It does seem to back up claims made anecdotally.
Once the number of beds starts to match the number of severely sick the figures should then start to add up better and as the critically I'll people either die or are officially discharged as recovered (and this can be relied on as more accurate because there is less pressure on beds and less willingness to discharge sick people to spread the disease). As time goes on, in theory, the statistics should become both more reliable and meaningful. This is due to better and more consistent methodology. However we always have the issue of Chinese state secrecy to be mindful of.
My point being, that the figures need to be seen though the lens of bed availability and the (lack of) willingness to officially diagnose the sick particularly early on in this crisis. China want to look in control of things but the stats do potentially betray inconsistencies in what they are reporting.
It does look very much at the moment that more people are getting very sick than are recovering, but that's not necessarily the case due to the situation and shortage of beds.
Certainly there is absolutely no sign that this is slowing down though. After a fortnight of lock down, there might have been hopes of this in Wuhan itself but there's not. You have to question whether what happens in Wuhan will be replicated if hospitals elsewhere reach saturation point too.
The stats seem to reveal more than anything else how out of control the situation currently is. And that should be your biggest concern, not the actual numbers you are seeing.