On Monday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) admitted that hospitalizations in her state are likely being over counted by as much as 50%.
During a COVID-19 briefing in Rochester, Hochul explained that people who are admitted to a hospital for an unrelated incident might test positive for COVID-19. She explained that these individuals are not being treated for the virus, but are still counted in the state’s COVID-19 hospitalization numbers.
“Someone is in a car accident they go to the emergency room they test positive for COVID while they’re there, they’re not they’re being treated for COVID,” Hochul explained.
“Now someone’s condition can worsen while they’re in the hospital,” she continued, “I’m not saying that won’t happen, but I’ve just been doing a random call around to some of the hospital leaders that I touch base with and I’m seeing numbers from 20% to sometimes 50%. We don’t have clear data right now, that’s anecdotal.”
According to News 10, “Starting Tuesday, Gov. Hochul will ask hospitals to report whether a patient is in the hospital for COVID-19 or if they tested positive for COVID-19 while being treated for another ailment.”
“Beginning tomorrow [Tuesday] we’re going to be asking all hospitals to break out for us, how many people are being hospitalized because of COVID symptoms, how many people happen to test positive just while they’re in there for other treatments,” Hochul said. “I think that’s important, I just want to be honest with New Yorkers about how bad this is. Yes, the number of people infected is high but I want to see whether or not the hospitalizations correlate with that.”
The news comes as New York has hit its highest number of active COVID-19 cases so far in the pandemic as a result of the new Omicron variant. The state’s number of daily deaths from the virus, however, have remained far below their peak in April 2020 when disgraced ex-Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo was requiring nursing homes to house patients who were infected with the virus.
