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Comment by Sohcahtoa82 | Hacker News Reader

I think the better statistic that is often ignored are how many end up in the ICU.

Ending up in the ICU with covid and from covid are very different things. You literally cannot get admitted to a hospital without getting a covid test and becoming a covid hospitalization or death. The testing itself causes issues as my son was admitted for appendicitis and they refused to remove the appendix until he had results from a covid test which at the time took about 2 days. Well they let his appendix burst and he ended up having to stay in the hospital for 2 weeks instead of what should have been a couple hour stay.

That must have been unbelievably frustrating and helpless experience. Are all patients tested for Covid? I wonder if unvaccinated are more likely to be tested or required to be tested when admitted to a hospital than vaccinated patients. If so, the stats for hospitalizations with covid are biased and less useful. The question is to what degree.

Which looks to be between 0.025%-0.4% putting these two sites together, depending on the state:

https://www.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19...

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7036e2.htm

then why are all ICU at 100% capacity right now ?

The odds of getting put into the ICU might be low, but the total number of cases is extremely high. The alpha variant peaked at 300,000 cases/day with a highest 7-day average of 260,000 cases in the USA. Omicron has hit over 1 million cases in a day with a 7-day average of 900,000.

Roll a 100-sided die enough times, and eventually you will get a LOT of ones.

All the ICUs are not at 100% right now.

Are people really this misinformed? Get a reality check and stop believing the clickbait. There is zero chance that 100% of ICUs are at 100% capacity.

Stop spreading misinformation. Zero states are reporting 100% utilization of ICU or inpatient beds. Not even close. Most are reporting under 80% utilization currently.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/hospitalization-7-day-trend

In Quebec where I am, from 03-01 to 07-01 average occupancy rate was above 104% and is above 94% most of the time.

It's an average, some are 55% some are 146%

Source: https://www.indexsante.ca/urgences/

What’s the base rate for ICU utilization? In the US, with certificates of need, I’d expect the steady state value to be around 60%.

I don't think ICU's are 100% full. There's also a double whammy where hospitals are reducing beds because of staffing shortages directly caused by Omicron infections.

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