At least in my area, covid cases are going down, but our hospitals aren't seeing much relief yet. I know covid cases require longer admission, so any decrease in admissions will lag behind confirmed cases, but admissions for other illnesses are climbing. What is the prediction for census this year? Even with covid coming and going in waves, do you think the high census and acuity will continue all Fall and Winter?
My information is from my experience, so anecdotal (take with a grain of salt.)
Seeing much more imaging for chest pain, abdominal pain, and change of mental status (Chest CT, Abdomen and Pelvic CT, and Head CT respectively.)
A small portion of these have active Covid, most don’t have active Covid, but not sure if they are past infections or never infected.
while The NUMBER of exams is increasing, the positive percentage rate for things like Pulmonary Embolism, Diverticulitis and Appendicitis and Ischemic bowel, and Stroke respectively is about the same. So I AM seeing more frequent disease, but I am also seeing more negative studies. Emphasize just because your X-rays and labs are negative, doesn’t mean your symptoms are all in your head (unless your symptoms really ARE in the head region, like headache, mental status changes, stroke symptoms, etc.)
My suspicion is many of these cases are Covid survivors presenting with complications, some of which are recognizable /diagnosable disease as above, and some of which are likely causing symptoms but not severe enough to show up on imaging studies.
I suspect what I am seeing is the “tip of the iceberg” of Long Covid.
So I expect although the death rate will fall a few weeks after the active case peak falls, ER visits and hospitalizations are going to be well above “pre-Covid” for a while.
@cwbullet , can you give a SWAG on the U.S. Population
%Vaccinated, never infected?
%Vaccinated, past infected?
%Unvaccinated, past infected?
and most importantly, the major “at risk” population
%Unvaccinated, not (yet) infected?