New Research Suggests Number of Kids Hospitalized for COVID Is Overcounted.

This article is from May and talks about how the number of children hospitalized due to coronavirus was overinflated in California specifically, but probably more broadly in hospitals nationwide. The reason being the old classic. When you are admitted to the hospital, apparently you must undergo coronavirus testing. If you are positive, it is listed as a coronavirus hospitalization when in reality the child is in the hospital for a completely separate cause. The article mentions the need to audit adult hospitalization data to check for this same issue.

nymag.com...

The reported number of COVID-19 hospitalizations, one of the primary metrics for tracking the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, was grossly inflated for children in California hospitals, two research papers published Wednesday concluded. The papers, both published in the journal Hospital Pediatrics, found that pediatric hospitalizations for COVID-19 were overcounted by at least 40 percent, carrying potential implications for nationwide figures.

The implications of the findings of these two studies are enormously important, as reports of pediatric hospitalizations have regularly made headlines over the past year, greatly affecting public perceptions about risks to children. Untold numbers of parents have kept children home from school or limited playdates and other activities out of fear their children would be infected and fall seriously ill. The hospitalization numbers for children were already extremely low relative to adults — at the pandemic’s peak this winter, it was roughly ten times lower than for 18-to-49-year-olds and 77 times lower than those age 65 and up. But cutting the pediatric numbers by nearly half is a striking difference, making the actual rates vanishingly small. Pediatric hospitalization figures for COVID-19 also influence policy on school openings and guidelines, camp recommendations, and other political decisions. Gandhi and Beck’s commentary noted, “Children have suffered tremendously due to policies that have kept schools and recreational facilities closed to them, and the burden has been greatest on children who are low-income and English-language learners.”

In one study, conducted at a children’s hospital in Northern California, among the 117 pediatric SARS-CoV2-positive patients hospitalized between May 10, 2020, and February 10, 2021, the authors concluded that 53 of them (or 45 percent) “were unlikely to be caused by SARS-CoV-2.” The reasons for hospital admission for these “unlikely” patients included surgeries, cancer treatment, a psychiatric episode, urologic issues, and various infections such as cellulitis, among other diagnoses. The study also found that 46 (or 39.3 percent) of patients coded as SARS-CoV2 positive were asymptomatic. In other words, despite patients’ testing positive for the virus as part of the hospital’s universal screening, COVID-19 symptoms were absent, therefore it was not the reason for the hospitalization. Any instance where the link between a positive SARS-CoV2 test and cause of admission was uncertain the authors erred toward giving a “likely” categorization.

Now there could be several reasons here and I want to point out first of all do we have any substantial evidence at all that asymptomatic spread is a main cause of "cases" or "infections"? No we do not obviously because there is no way to know how many asymptomatic cases are out there and even whether or not asymptomatic cases confer immunity or not for sure. Even in Fauci's emails, the man himself says he doesn't think asymptomatic spread is a driver of pandemics.

So we have 39 percent that tested positive but have no symptoms and the study's authors presume that means that SARS-CoV-2 was not responsible for their hospitalization. Ok that is easy to understand. What is harder to understand is whether or not these children who had no symptoms at any time.... actually were infected with coronavirus or were there many false positives? (I have to say this. There is a difference between asymptomatic and presymptomatic and I find it hard to believe that scientific experts doing a study like this would miscategorize.)

Is there some overlap between asymptomatic "cases" and false positives? Is the rate of false positives much higher than admitted or maybe known? I am not a doctor and have not gotten any coronavirus tests but you would think that if you are asymptomatic and maybe suspect a false positive test that you could get a blood test to confirm infection or antibodies, but perhaps asymptomatic means you don't end up getting antibodies because of low viral load. Are there studies of asymptomatic vs. severe symptoms viral load? Perhaps there is some genetic basis to people having no symptoms to coronavirus. I watched a documentary about Ebola that talked about how some people (very, very few) were just naturally immune to ebola and scientists were studying them to try and make medications to treat Ebola.

Regardless, I don't hear very much in the media about any efforts to understand these asymptomatic cases or whether there is some special aspect to these people that makes them less susceptible to severe illness from this virus than others. So these must all be dumb questions but I thought this article was interesting and figured I would share it.

Also need to make it clear that this article is from May, and I don't know when the delta variant started so maybe since this article, as the MSM reports the delta variant is hospitalizing a lot of children and they couldn't possibly still be misleading us.

Last research a saw said children under ten had about a 0.0 percent chance of dying from this anyway... So my guess would be that yes, they're lying about the number of deaths in children.
How else could they push the vaccine for kids narrative?

a reply to: lordcomac

Personally I feel that asymptomatic cases are the boogeyman. They are what is keeping most compliant people going along with wearing the masks indoors or everywhere. If a lot of asymptomatic cases are actually false positives, or asymptomatic spread of the virus is extremely rare or flat out non existent then the masks for everyone narrative crumbles. Masks for sick people...ok. But if the asymptomatic boogeyman doesn't exist, masks for people with no symptoms are pointless and just......putting on my tinfoil armor....a control measure.

Waaayyyy overinflated 😎

When are the criminals responsible for the false narrative going to be charged with several charges they have coming to them?!! Oh that's right never. They are above the law.

"And when you kill a man, you're a murderer. Kill many, and you're a conqueror. Kill them all... ooh, oh, you're a God"
Captive honour. Megadeth.

Sounds a lot like Fauci etc.

But there can be NO over counting of adults, right?

a reply to: lordcomac

Thats a big statement. 0.0% ?

Can you show us where you got that 0 figure?

I personally know 1 kid under 10 who had a positive case. But my anecdotal claim is not evidence.

Can you support your claim?

a reply to: xuenchen

You are way overinflated, so i can agree with that aspect

a reply to: ancientlight

Probably when God wants to charge them.

You could always press charges if it helps you

a reply to: Chalcedony

Are you really surprised?

The NYT ran a headline stating 900,000, yes read again, 900,000 children were hospitalized with covid.

They later corrected to say only 63,000, but that's just not an acceptable margin of error or acceptable time-frame for a correction.

Would it really be surprising to find out that the 63,000 number is also inflated? Nope...

a reply to: Chalcedony
Just had a party today with probably around 30-50 people today, let's see if we die. It involved 13-94 years of age. 🤷‍♂️
Also DJ'd a wedding last August. Not this August, with a buncha 25-40 year olds wedding last year, no one died.