Hospitalization depends on the need to be in the hospital. If someone can wait it out at home, that’s far better than shedding virus in the hospital and risking exposure to everyone else.
Our hospital has its ER numbers down, because people aren’t trying to use the ER for primary care anymore. So more of the patients coming in are true emergencies.
A more useful statistic than “death rate” would be “30-day mortality rate.” People are looking at the number of deaths and number of infections, and assuming the death rate is low. A lot of the people who die from COVID-19 are having prolonged illness before succumbing. A 30-day mortality rate would be a good reminder of that and separate better from the numbers of new cases.
Good suggestion Re 30:day period.
All I wa t is some better criteria and segmentation instead of hype that is used in many instances