A growing number of patients who test positive for Covid when they are admitted to hospital with another illness is a major problem, according to an Omicron Hotspot London doctor.
There is growing pressure from experts and politicians to distinguish between admissions from Covid and patients with the virus after MailOnline yesterday revealed up to two-thirds of new coronavirus patients are not being treated by the NHS because of the disease.
Cambridge epidemiologist Dr Raghib Ali said that this distinction is vital before ministers can make any decision on further lockdown curbs because it will show how much pressure the NHS is actually under.
In the two weeks to December 21, hospitals in England recorded 563 new coronavirus inpatients — the majority of which are believed to be Omicron now that the variant is the country’s dominant stain.
Just 197 people (35%) were treated for Covid. 366 others (65%) only tested positive once they were admitted for other reasons.
Zudin Puthucheary is a London physician and member of the Intensive Care Society. He said that the number of people who ‘happen as Covid positive’ in hospital was skewing statistics.
And he added the figures are further boosted by the number of people catching the virus on wards — with separate data showing 31 per cent of patients test positive seven days after treatment for other illnesses.
The ministers will keep an eye on the hospitalisation figures in the capital. If admissions exceed 400 per day, lockdown restrictions could be implemented.
The figure is considered to be the breaking point of the NHS — despite daily admissions reaching 977 in January during the height of the last winter wave of the pandemic. Recent data shows that hospitalizations remain just below the threshold. Monday’s admission of 301 Covid patients was the most recent.
MailOnline analysis shows that only 44% of the 10 Omicron Hospital patients admitted to London for different reasons.
An increasing number of Covid patients are being treated in London’s hospitals for another condition. A current 25% of “Covid patients” are being treated for an unrelated condition. They were admitted to the hospital initially for other reasons and later tested positive for the virus.
In fact, there are fewer Covid patients being admitted to hospitals for Covid than ever before Omicron. Incidental Covid admissions (where someone arrives at hospital with a specific reason for being positive) have seen a sharp rise in recent weeks. These admissions now account for the largest proportion of all hospital admissions.
Data from separate sources suggests that 31% of NHS England’s daily hospitalisations were for people who had been receiving treatment for over a week, before they tested positive for the virus.
Dr Puthucheary told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘This is a major problem.
‘Anecdotally we call it Covid bystander problems, where you come in with say a major car crash — people drink and drive a lot over Christmas — and they happen to be Covid positive but no one notices this until it comes back.
“This is a problem as it slows down the hospital’s work.
“It slows down urgent surgery because it requires precautions to be taken. This really impacts our efficiency as well as how we are able to help patients.
When asked whether the high number of positive tests after arrival was impacting hospitalisation statistics, the doctor replied that they are also affected by the increased number of virus-infected patients on the wards.
He said: ‘Yes and we saw a lot of this in the last two waves, where our so-called green and clean areas were rapidly infected with patients with Covid who brought it in but didn’t manifest anything.
‘There’s a worry about how transmissible this is — it’s far more transmissible than any variant than we’ve seen before, so the fact that we’re seeing milder disease isn’t necessarily a good thing from the NHS’s point of view.’
He warned that although ICU admissions for Covid patients are low, doctors expect numbers to rise at the beginning of January after current high cases have been sufficiently timed to become severe.
Hospitals are put under strain by Covid-infected patients. They need to be isolated and depending on various risk factors (e.g., if they’re elderly or frail) Covid may exacerbate existing health issues and eventually become their main reason for being in hospital.
Omicron has been a growing concern for NHS officials, who have warned that pressure is building on the NHS despite the fact that there are less Covid patients at present than in November.
NHS England statistics show that 6,245 Covid patients required hospital treatment on December 21. This figure stood at 7,301 on November 1, just four weeks prior to the discovery of the first Omicron case in the UK.
MailOnline received Dr Ali’s explanation that Omicron is more prevalent in certain communities. This means there are higher chances of Omicron developing in people who visit hospitals for various reasons, including broken legs.
It’s a common feature to have so many Omicron in your community. It is important to discern between admissions that have been made primarily for Covid or those that do not.
‘It’s not only helpful but in many ways essential to know the primary diagnosis and to know how many daily admissions there are for every condition — that would give us an indication of the true pressure on the NHS.’
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University was a prominent statistician. He said, “It seems like there’s an increasing number being admitted to hospital for people with Covid, possibly the Omicron variant.
“This may be inevitable because of a rapidly spreading variant, in which most people do not feel symptoms. However, it places an additional burden on hospitals to care for the infected.
A UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) report became the fourth study to show the new strain causes less severe illness, suggesting the variant is between 50 and 70 per cent less likely to cause hospital admission and up to 45 per cent less likely to result in a person going to A&E
Data from separate sources suggests that 31% of NHS England’s Daily Hospitalisation figures included people who had been receiving treatment for over a week and were positive for the virus.
Another statistic shows that 29% of positive patients had been treated for Covid, even though they were tested positive.
Karol Sikora (a British doctor who specializes in the treatment of cancer) said that No10 must distinguish between Covid patients and people with positive results later. This will allow for further restrictions to be made.
The Daily Telegraph was informed by him that the Government should consider not only the amount of Covid being caught in hospital, but also the proportion of those who would have been admitted anyway.
“Those individuals should not count as Covid admissions. Although it may seem easier to follow a strict rule, this isn’t the best way.
“The greatest danger from any further lockdowns are that they frighten people from using NHS for other purposes and it will result in more deaths than Omicron.