Well, no, they didn't. They wrote the entirely true statement that over half tested positive after admission.
The fact that you disagree with one possible interpretation of this fact does not make it misleading. It's just a fact.
(I will grant you that the subhead is sensationalized, but the title on this one seems fine to me, and the article is fairly balanced.)
> It's more amazing that 44% tested positive prior to arriving at hospital!
It isn't "amazing"...we've been mass-testing for the better part of a year. I'd be shocked if most people who show up to the ER with respiratory illness didn't have a prior test result.
> But all of that is besides the point because the reported statistic wasn't even labelled or reported by the original source (the NHS) as "covid as cause of admission." The stat is labelled "covid positive admissions" which is not logically equivalent to "covid, as primary cause of admission"
Well, yes. That's exactly the point. Maybe you are not surprised by this, but a great many people are. And when you see that half of those "covid positive admissions" were only confirmed after admission, then it starts to raise alarms.