This is WAY higher than ANY OTHER reason for hospitalization, including childbirth.
Top 3 reasons for admission in US, 2017 (36.5 million annual admissions):
Childbirth - 10.1%
Sepsis (infection) - 5.7%
Arthritis (elective surgery mostly) - 3.4%
The estimate of 16% of hospitalizations for Covid-19 right now assumes that all elective surgeries are happening as planned and includes kids and childbirth.
So this is a big underestimate of what hospitals are seeing in standard adult inpatient units.
Mortality next - 2,733 deaths on 12/2.
In 2018, there were ~7,800 daily deaths in the whole US on average. Let's assume that's 8,000 for 2020 without Covid.
That means that 34% of ALL DEATHS daily in the US right now are from Covid. Over ONE in THREE.
Here's the most frightening part. We are in the eye of the storm.
We won't see the biggest bump in hospitalizations or deaths from Thanksgiving travel for another 1-2 weeks
And then there's Xmas + new year travel
Don't get numb. Please be safer than you have ever been in 2020
@walidgellad raised an important technical point which is that my estimates don't represent what the final numbers will be for Covid-19 % of hospitalizations or deaths.
That is true - BUT - my point here is just benchmarking how bad this is compared to typical stats.
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@JAMA_current@kejoynt@DavidCGrabowski A little discussed bundled payment model run by CMMI from 2013-2018 was focused on nursing facilities as risk-bearing providers - so called "BPCI Model 3"
How did this program work for total joint replacement - the most common surgery in Medicare?
Part of the challenge has been persistent PPE and staff shortages. These are widely reported but there hasn't been much data on what is happening.
@Health_Affairs@CMSGov@McGarryBE@DavidCGrabowski We looked at nursing homes' answers about whether they had 1 week or less of 6 critical PPE supplies (e.g. gloves, N95, gowns) and whether they had shortages of staff in 4 categories (e.g. nurses, nurse aides).
@JAMAInternalMed The first study by @eric_t_roberts@Ateevm uses Census data from 2018 to ask how many Medicare enrollees have access to: 1) any computer with high speed internet 2) smartphone with data 3) any digital access
Proportion that lack digital access:
- 50% of those 85+
- 45% of those with less than HS education
- 50% of those below the federal poverty limit
- 36% of those on Medicaid
Clearly video telemedicine won't be accessible to wide swaths of vulnerable older adults