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Comment by sterlind | Hacker News Reader

> But it's still misleading, because a lot of these hospitalizations are going to ERs for testing.

I don't think this is correct. Going to the ER is not the same as being admitted to the hospital. From everything I've read, ER visits are not counted as hospitalizations anywhere.

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Yes, they are. They count anyone admitted to a hospital in NYC, at any time, for any duration:

https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/blob/ced762b25...

> Hospitalization counts reflect the total number of people with COVID-19 ever admitted to a hospital, not the number of people currently admitted.

If you go to the ER and make it to a treatment area, you're admitted. These are bright-line distinctions. Nobody is making judgment calls on the data ("did this person really get admitted, or is it just someone in the ER for an hour? Let me look at the chart!") at this level of analysis.

Really? Is this a NYC thing? Any hospital I’ve ever been in has considered the ER an outpatient service, and you are only admitted to the hospital if they transfer you from the ER to inpatient care. Do they consider other outpatient services, like, say, yearly physicals, an admission as well?

I can't speak to outpatient services, but hospitals report this data, and make the call. The government doesn't do it -- which is what you'd expect. It's hard and slow to make case-by-case judgment calls when you're far from the source data. Hospitals, in turn, don't spend any more time than is absolutely required making these kinds of classifications, unless someone makes them do it.

It would not surprise me at all to find that other cities/states have the same thing happening.

I've been in the ER dozens of times and I not considered admitted until I am told I'm getting admitted and wheeled upstairs

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