40% of Covid cases caught IN hospital

[Redbrickwall]

I know it’s the daily mail but it’s all over

So whilst our lives have been fucked, they realistically needed to improve infection control in hospital.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9254495/Stopping-Covid-spreading-hospitals-substantial-reduction-wave-deaths.html

I hear that HWs in our local acute hospitals are being vaccinated very quickly, as fast as the 80+. GP surgery staff are clamouring to be done soon locally.

I wonder if covid is actually spreading more in UK hospitals than in any others. I bet it's a problem in Japan or South Korea, too.

Most people in hospital (apart from maternity!) are quite ill. Gone are the days of Carry On Matron where people lie in a bed with their leg in plaster for two weeks.

I was in hospital for a few weeks a while ago (before covid) and I was the youngest patient by several decades (I am in my 50s) and every single night out squeaked a trolley bearing a body bag. I can imagine that any infection - be it norovirus or covid - would have found it easy to infect and see off many patients.

I thought the hospital was very hygienic, but with all the PPE in the world they can’t stop patients breathing and air particles floating over to others - unless every single patient is nursed at a distance in a Perspex bubble/not allowed to visit the toilet etc.

@lljkk

I hear that HWs in our local acute hospitals are being vaccinated very quickly, as fast as the 80+. GP surgery staff are clamouring to be done soon locally.

I wonder if covid is actually spreading more in UK hospitals than in any others. I bet it's a problem in Japan or South Korea, too.

I’d put money on it happening anywhere where patients are treated on wards and there are high levels of circulating covid in the community. Especially given these figures include people that might not have caught it in the hospital but only because infections while in hospital.

There’s no failsafe way of stopping it getting in and spreading once it does. The best way to deal with it is to deal with the community spread and stop it getting in in the first place. It’s the same for care homes and schools tbh.

It's important to note that this (40%) statistic is about the 1st wave

In that case, surely it's even higher now?
After all, aren't we always told the situation in hospitals is much worse this time round?

@Puzzledandpissedoff

It's important to note that this (40%) statistic is about the 1st wave

In that case, surely it's even higher now?
After all, aren't we always told the situation in hospitals is much worse this time round?

From the article:

The estimated figure for hospital-acquired coronavirus cases is much lower when a cautious definition is used, counting only those testing positive at least 15 days after admission, who are highly unlikely to have been infected before they got to hospital.

It is too soon to know for certain whether in-hospital transmission was reduced in the second wave, with 24,000 people still on wards with Covid across the UK. The latest NHS England data suggests around one in five hospital cases is acquired on a ward — an average of 330 per day.

Comparing waves is problematic because of the unknown level of infection rates in the community at the time and the long period when PPE wasn't available (in any form) to HCWs (with a separate issue as to availability of testing) and information about the transmission/dispersion of the virus was in its relative infancy.

That makes sense, EmbarrassingAdmissions, and I completely take your point
However as so often with measuring and statistics, it does seem as if they're picking what bits suit according to the preferred narrative

It’s the headline that’s wrong. The article is clear enough in saying that the % that almost certainly caught it in hospital is 8.8% and then adding various groups after that. It then says 40% but with the caveat that the last two groups to take it up to that were unlikely to have caught it there. But it was 40% that went in the headline because that’s the figure that will catch people’s attention.

I’ve asked MN if they’d change the title on the thread because it’s misleading but I doubt they will.

For a significant period of the first wave, you could only get a test if you were in hospital!

It’s the headline that’s wrong

Nothing new there then

No

Tbf to the journalist, they probably didn’t write the headline that got put in later.