Covid Math Question

[JD Lud]

Please this isn’t a political post or vaccine yes or no, just real life question that I don’t understand why it’s not being asked…

 

If 40-50% of hospital patients across the country and areas including NYC test positive for Covid as recently published when going in for something else (no symptoms just mandatory testing to enter hospital), shouldn’t the same hold true if we tested the general population?  There are a great range of people that go to the hospital from kids, births, broken bones, procedures for all ages that would be vaccinated and not.  I mean it has to be a pretty good cross section of the public.  If we tested the entire country that doesn’t exhibit symptoms we should expect that same 40-50% shouldn’t we?

 

Also, if NYC is that high doesn’t that provide proof that what they are doing is not effective as it’s very similar to places that are wide open?  
 

What am I missing?

 

 

[bgavin]

The part you are missing: "follow the money"

Hospitals are not allowed to turn away the indigent.
They have to treat them for free, and absorb the loss.

Every person coming for any treatment is covid tested.
If they are covid positive, they are are registered as such.
And the hospital gets $13,000 where they would otherwise get no payment for the indigent.

Here in the PRoK, indigents use the ER as their medical coverage.
They come in with a sprained finger, get admitted as covid positive... hospital gets paid.

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

There are so many wrinkles in Covid stats that drawing conclusions is anything but straightforward, which is why there’s so much confusion. Different organizations can look at the same data and publish remarkably different results & conclusions. 
 

And that’s without considering those manipulating the data for whatever benefits them. I’ve seen it happen in marketing. 
 

Statistics never lie, but liars use statistics. 

[JD Lud]

So either the tests are correct and half of us have it, or the hospitals are exaggerating or altering for payment?

 

It just surprises me some smart media person doesn’t connect the  hospital populations of non Covid symptomatic to the rest of the population.  Wait a minute…some people from the government are at the door and say they are here to help…

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

8 hours ago, JD Lud said:

So either the tests are correct and half of us have it, or the hospitals are exaggerating or altering for payment?

 

It just surprises me some smart media person doesn’t connect the  hospital populations of non Covid symptomatic to the rest of the population.  Wait a minute…some people from the government are at the door and say they are here to help…

Point (1): Hospitals are reporting every positive case they can for the money. I've mentioned this one before; Here in Tucson, a guy was heading to get tested on his motorcycle and got into a bad accident. DOA. Since he was GOING to get tested, it was reported as a Covid death.

Point (2): You are assuming that the media are responsible, and WANT to report the facts about Covid. They don't. They are as much The Left as is Brandon and his ilk. Half of the media types you see are literally MARRIED to politicians. They are the same people. The media are NOT unbiased, simply reporting what is happening. They are controlling the narrative. If the facts don't match the narrative, they are changed or ignored.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

9 hours ago, JD Lud said:

 

If 40-50% of hospital patients across the country and areas including NYC test positive for Covid as recently published

 

That’s a big IF.  But are they?

[Sedalia Dave]

Mark Twain summed it up well over 100 years ago. 
 

[Captain Bill Burt]

If you want more of something, subsidize it.  If you want less of something, tax it.  Covid is being subsidized. 

[Buckshot Bob]

27 minutes ago, Captain Bill Burt said:

If you want more of something, subsidize it.  If you want less of something, tax it.  Covid is being subsidized. 

There’s big talk about revising testing protocols . I’m thinking it’s because the midterms are coming up . The only way for them to cause something good to happen is to un do some of the misery they are causing. It’s easy to solve the problem when your the cause of it 

[Capt. R. Hugh Kidnme]

1 hour ago, Captain Bill Burt said:

If you want more of something, subsidize it.  If you want less of something, tax it.  Covid is being subsidized. 

So accurate, you're dead center of dead center.

[Blackwater 53393]

To all of you who are trying to apply logic to this!!

 

JUST QUIT!!

 

You’re gonna’ hurt yerselfs!! 

[JD Lud]

2 hours ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

That’s a big IF.  But are they?

Plenty of data out there to include CDC admitting it.  Which again begs why someone hasn’t connected the dots of population vs population.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/data-york-differentiates-between-patients-213613061.html

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

24 minutes ago, JD Lud said:

Plenty of data out there to include CDC admitting it.  Which again begs why someone hasn’t connected the dots of population vs population.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/data-york-differentiates-between-patients-213613061.html

To quote Wyatt Earp in "Tombstone", "There's no money in it."

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

Once you've had covid, you can test positive for it up to 4 months later, because the hospital/lab tests are so sensitive they'll pick up trace amounts. This happened to me back in November. I got Covid in September and also had a knee replacement revision previously scheduled for November. I was tested again 7 weeks later days before the surgery and came up positive, so it was delayed. I was told that I was neither contagious nor sick with Covid and no need to quarantine, but policy was policy and I had to wait. I tested a week later and tested negative, so things worked out.

 

Since the tests were performed by two different organizations, I'm wondering how those positive results were tabulated. For purposes of the database, was that one positive case since it was the same person, or two because they're just collecting raw numbers? So for those who get say, 4 positives before a negative, the raw data could conceivably be interpreted to inflate total numbers. That context is essential, but I'm not convinced it's necessarily applied.

 

BTW, my wife & I were both vaccinated with two doses, plus she had a booster the month before the infection. My symptoms were mild - I've had worse colds. She was without symptoms. We were both offered monoclonal infusions and we accepted because we felt there was nothing to lose. My symptoms were already improving after 4 days which was before the infusion. (There's a 10 day window after initial infection to get the infusion. They won't give it after that.) When asked by my doc if I thought the infusion helped, I couldn't say that it did since I was already getting better on my own.

 

We let everyone know that we had been in close contact with the week prior to our tests. Most were vaccinated and there were no infections or positive test results. I had spent most of a day with one pard who chooses not to vaccinate, and he never got sick.

 

Whatever the truth is in all of this, I'm convinced the data is suspect and results/conclusions are rushed without thorough study. We even had two SCOTUS justices (Breyer and Sotomayor) cite wildly inaccurate stats last Friday in the hearings over vax mandates. It's gonna take years of post pandemic study to know what really happened and what measures were effective. I'm cynical enough to believe there are a lot of bad actors who are taking advantage of the confusion for personal gain. I'm also convinced much of the measures taken are because they don't really know what to do. Like gun control, it's the classic "Well, we have to do something", without considering if it's effective.

 

 

[El Chapo]

13 hours ago, JD Lud said:

Please this isn’t a political post or vaccine yes or no, just real life question that I don’t understand why it’s not being asked…

 

If 40-50% of hospital patients across the country and areas including NYC test positive for Covid as recently published when going in for something else (no symptoms just mandatory testing to enter hospital), shouldn’t the same hold true if we tested the general population?  There are a great range of people that go to the hospital from kids, births, broken bones, procedures for all ages that would be vaccinated and not.  I mean it has to be a pretty good cross section of the public.  If we tested the entire country that doesn’t exhibit symptoms we should expect that same 40-50% shouldn’t we?

 

Also, if NYC is that high doesn’t that provide proof that what they are doing is not effective as it’s very similar to places that are wide open?  
 

What am I missing?

 

 

 

No, because people in the hospital are not a representative sample of the general population.  They're probably not far from the population, but the demographics of those admitted to the hospital differ from the general population (older and sicker, and I'm sure there are other characteristics that are different).  It doesn't mean that the statistic wouldn't be similar for the general population, but the power of statistical inference is not there where the sample chosen is not representative.

[Blackwater 53393]

Thanks, Slim!!  Well said and backed up with personal experience and critical observation!!

 

My own experience and analysis agrees with what you said!!

 

Is there any wonder there is so much skepticism and suspicion where the handling of this episode is concerned??

 

 I was hospitalized early  last spring.  I was tested three times in 24 hours, each test resulting in a negative for infection.  During my stay, I asked several of my care givers, doctors, nurses, lab technicians, and the “hospitalist”, a doctor responsible for coordination of treatment and scheduling of tests. My question was how many patients they were treating for Covid at the time. The period in question was when we were in the middle of the second peak of the original outbreak, a short time before the Delta variant reared its head.

 

The answer I most often received was “10 or 12 right now.”  This isn’t a small facility! It takes up two city blocks and is twelve stories tall!  I also asked what the rate was across the system, (the hospital is part of a regional AND statewide group).  Several of the people I spoke to told me that there were plenty of beds available and that most cases were mild to asymptomatic and most patients weren’t even kept overnight.

 

At that time, the news and the bureaucrats were weeping and crying that we were being overrun with cases and that people were dropping like flies!!

 

I kept thinking of a favorite song of mine. The hook from the song is,

“Somebody tell me!

Somebody tell me,

Who To Believe!”

 

The math doesn’t add up and you can’t apply logic to it because there ISN’T any logic to it!

 

 

 

[Dusty Devil Dale]

On 1/10/2022 at 8:45 PM, bgavin said:

The part you are missing: "follow the money"

Hospitals are not allowed to turn away the indigent.
They have to treat them for free, and absorb the loss.

Every person coming for any treatment is covid tested.
If they are covid positive, they are are registered as such.
And the hospital gets $13,000 where they would otherwise get no payment for the indigent.

Here in the PRoK, indigents use the ER as their medical coverage.
They come in with a sprained finger, get admitted as covid positive... hospital gets paid.

Wow! 

Not exactly. 

We've all heard lots of cleverly woven stories about COVID related money laundering and manipulation by hospitals and their supposed reasons for doing it.  There might be isolated actual cases of that (which constitute criminal fraud), but they are very scarce.  Hospital documentation and billing simply does not work that way.   Hospitals cannot legally charge anybody for a mere positive test, except for the actual cost of performing the test itself.  

 

Incidental illnesses or positive tests are common in almost all hospital patients.  But  patient records show, as the "Primary Billable Illness", that specific complaint which patients state to the ER Triage staff at the time they arrive requesting care, or the complaint for which they are referred by a private physician for hospital admission/treatment.   

 

If you go in complaining of a broken leg and also happen to test positive for something else, the documentation shows admission/ treatment of the broken leg as the primary illness.   If other illness is discovered that requires treatment, or adds complexity and cost to treatment of your broken leg (such as Mulitple Myeloma being discovered), then that illness is also treated and gets coded for billing against private insurance carriers or other financial resources (e.g., government program funding). 

But a mere positive test that does not require actual additional treatment or cost has no billing code, and so cannot be charged against anybody.

 

Private insurance, or the government, would very quickly sue, and have prosecuted for criminal fraud, any hospitals or physicians who billed for illness that is not actually treated. 

 

 Charge coding is set up for PROCEDURES performed, not for generic illness or untreated detected conditions.  

 

The fake stories you are seeing have been perpetrated by those who seek to minimize the apparent seriousness of the COVID virus, for whatever reason.

 

Except for a few fraudulent cases. The 3/4 Million U.S. persons who were reported to have died of COVID were actually symptomatic for the disease. -- In fact, that 750,000 number does NOT include all those persons who, because of hospitals at capacity due to COVID, could not be admitted to hospitals and died for lack of adequate treatment or delayed treatment of other unrelated conditions (things like accidents, cancers, peritonitis, or cardiac conditions.) The CDC estimates that those secondary mortality individuals are likely to be at least as numerous as persons dieing directly from COVID.

 

Don't get pulled in by all the BS stories being circulated in the rumor mill or appearing on the half-informed (fake) news or radio talk shows who get paid big dollars for magnifying controversy and sensationalism.  That propaganda is creating distrust in medical advice and doing great harm as we societally try to get the virus controlled.  

 

I seriously suggest you ask your doctor for the true story concerning the seriousness of COVID.  

 

 

[Blackwater 53393]

One of the guys that plays in my band is an independent forensic auditor who deals with two of the healthcare systems in my area.

 

When I asked him about the stories of hospitals padding the books by adding Covid treatment to their reports in order to get the compensation for that treatment, he told me that it was not uncommon and that when this episode was finally over that there would be many lawsuits and probably quite a few criminal charges filed by the government and that some of these hospital systems would be charged back for these activities.

 

I’m currently being treated by four individual doctors/healthcare providers.  When I asked three of them their unofficial opinions of the current “crisis”, two of the three said that much of what is reported by the government and the mainstream media is grossly inflated.  Of the four, two have had the virus and one suffered serious symptoms. The one who was really ill is immuno-compromised and he was symptomatic for a couple of weeks. He told me that he made two trips to his own primary care provider, but was never hospitalized. He is one of those who stated that the “crisis” is overblown.

 

 I will see the fourth doctor tomorrow. I only see her quarterly for my diabetic treatment. I  will ask her opinion, but I suspect that she will either not comment or will have little input as she doesn’t deal with patients in a hospital setting and specializes in managing diabetes.

 

 I have already reported my own experiences in a previous post here. I have no reason to doubt the answers I was given by ANY of those with which I have dealt with or spoken to.

 

After hearing and seeing the narrative repeatedly change to suit the purposes of the politicians and bureaucrats in charge, and seeing and hearing the complicit media overdramatize and over editorialize the situation, I do have doubts as to their veracity and I am skeptical of their intentions!

 

I won’t just readily accept what I hear and or see! I’ll ask my own questions and I will take ALL of the answers “with a grain of salt”.

 

 

 

[Sedalia Dave]

Well my crystal ball says that in 6 or 7 months the Covid pandemic will be declared officially over.

 

Despite what you might think this has nothing to do with the November mid-term elections. If you believe that i have a couple of bridges and some lake front property I want to sell for a phenomenal price. 

 

 

It also predicts that the covid pandemic will return in January 2023 if republicans have majorities in both the house and senate.

[bgavin]

1 hour ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

I will see the fourth doctor tomorrow. I only see her quarterly for my diabetic treatment. I  will ask her opinion, but I suspect that she will either not comment or will have little input as she doesn’t deal with patients in a hospital setting and specializes in managing diabetes.

Ask her about how statins, ace inhibitors, beta blockers and hydrochlorthiazide ALL make you a diabetic.
The fine print:  all these drugs raise blood sugar.
 

I'm just completing a debacle with Kaiser HMO who diagnosed me as having an "anterior infarct" then entirely blew off taking any care of this.
I literally had to check into the ER to get them to take action.
7 hours later, they had run every test, xray, treadmill ECG, then echo cardiogram, only to say "no heart attack,."

The first ECG either has a broken machine, or a doctor with a degree from a Cracker Jax box.
None have English as their first language, and no native English speaking doctors are available.

One doctor increased my diuretics, then the cardiologist said "take him off diuretics".

This is long winded, but the point being the Left hand has no clue about the Right hand.

If you read the fine print on all the blood pressure drugs, every last one of the increases blood sugar.

I have ceased the lisinopril-hydrochlorthiazide and lovastatin entirely.
My blood sugar has dropped over 60 points.

I have not been 139 in the AM in a long time.

These drugs MAKE you into a diabetic.
I was taking the BP drugs long before diagnosed as diabetic.

Ask her about this.

[bgavin]

9 hours ago, Dusty Devil Dale said:

I seriously suggest you ask your doctor for the true story concerning the seriousness of COVID. 

Kaiser is my provider.
None of my doctors speak English as their native language.  None.
A couple of these clods are downright idiots.

If you want the real story, talk to the nurses.
Two of my daughters are nurses, and can attest to the above.
The vast majority of hospitalized covid patients are unvaccinated latinos.
You can do the math from here.

[Blackwater 53393]

I developed diabetes without ever taking a beta blocker, an ace inhibitor, a statin, or hydrochlorthiazide.  I managed my cholesterol with diet, vitamin E, and fish oil.  My biggest problem was that while my total cholesterol was fairly low, I couldn’t raise my good cholesterol to an accepted level and my tri-glicerides stayed marginally high.

 

What I have encountered is that most diabetic medications tend to raise my blood pressure. I can do without the blood pressure medication, but I don’t like being in the margins of hypertension.

 

The rest of the medications I take are for the damage caused by severe infections and for neuropathy caused in part by diabetes, but mostly due to multiple spinal injuries and some abnormal bone growth resulting in severe spinal stenosis. Three different encounters with MRSA and one almost catastrophic episode of strep did some damage to my digestive system.  I’m still recovering from the most recent MRSA event.  
 

I’m not the typical type two diabetic in most respects, according to my doctors.  I’m not terribly overweight.  I don’t eat “right”, but I don’t eat a lot of sweets or a lot of high carb foods. I’m actually the first person in my immediate family to become diabetic, at least in the last three generations, and there are no other family members who suffer from diabetes.

 

 I have asked some of the questions you pose as a result of changes in my own condition.

 

[Doc X]

19 hours ago, Dusty Devil Dale said:

Wow! 

Not exactly. 

We've all heard lots of cleverly woven stories about COVID related money laundering and manipulation by hospitals and their supposed reasons for doing it.  There might be isolated actual cases of that (which constitute criminal fraud), but they are very scarce.  Hospital documentation and billing simply does not work that way.   Hospitals cannot legally charge anybody for a mere positive test, except for the actual cost of performing the test itself.  

 

Incidental illnesses or positive tests are common in almost all hospital patients.  But  patient records show, as the "Primary Billable Illness", that specific complaint which patients state to the ER Triage staff at the time they arrive requesting care, or the complaint for which they are referred by a private physician for hospital admission/treatment.   

 

If you go in complaining of a broken leg and also happen to test positive for something else, the documentation shows admission/ treatment of the broken leg as the primary illness.   If other illness is discovered that requires treatment, or adds complexity and cost to treatment of your broken leg (such as Mulitple Myeloma being discovered), then that illness is also treated and gets coded for billing against private insurance carriers or other financial resources (e.g., government program funding). 

But a mere positive test that does not require actual additional treatment or cost has no billing code, and so cannot be charged against anybody.

 

Private insurance, or the government, would very quickly sue, and have prosecuted for criminal fraud, any hospitals or physicians who billed for illness that is not actually treated. 

 

 Charge coding is set up for PROCEDURES performed, not for generic illness or untreated detected conditions.  

 

The fake stories you are seeing have been perpetrated by those who seek to minimize the apparent seriousness of the COVID virus, for whatever reason.

 

Except for a few fraudulent cases. The 3/4 Million U.S. persons who were reported to have died of COVID were actually symptomatic for the disease. -- In fact, that 750,000 number does NOT include all those persons who, because of hospitals at capacity due to COVID, could not be admitted to hospitals and died for lack of adequate treatment or delayed treatment of other unrelated conditions (things like accidents, cancers, peritonitis, or cardiac conditions.) The CDC estimates that those secondary mortality individuals are likely to be at least as numerous as persons dieing directly from COVID.

 

Don't get pulled in by all the BS stories being circulated in the rumor mill or appearing on the half-informed (fake) news or radio talk shows who get paid big dollars for magnifying controversy and sensationalism.  That propaganda is creating distrust in medical advice and doing great harm as we societally try to get the virus controlled.  

 

I seriously suggest you ask your doctor for the true story concerning the seriousness of COVID.  

 

 

And that is how it's supposed to work, but it doesn't always. A family member of mine worked in admitting at a large local hospital. That person was instructed, "If they test positive for covid, the primary complaint WILL be listed and coded as covid regardless of other complaints." I know this to be fact not BS.

[Cactus Jack Calder]

On 1/10/2022 at 11:55 PM, Abilene Slim SASS 81783 said:

And that’s without considering those manipulating the data for whatever benefits them. I’ve seen it happen in marketing. 
 

Statistics never lie, but liars use statistics. 

As an Engineering student in the late 1960’s I was required to take a course in statistics. The title of the course and the tittle of the textbook for the course was: “How to Lie With Statistics”. The thrust of the course was that by using selective sampling you could statistically “prove” your predetermined outcome. Naturally I’ve been very skeptical of any statistical evidence promoting a viewpoint of the organization presenting the data.

 

CJ

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

29 minutes ago, Cactus Jack Calder said:

As an Engineering student in the late 1960’s I was required to take a course in statistics. The title of the course and the tittle of the textbook for the course was: “How to Lie With Statistics”. The thrust of the course was that by using selective sampling you could statistically “prove” your predetermined outcome. Naturally I’ve been very skeptical of any statistical evidence promoting a viewpoint of the organization presenting the data.

 

CJ

Yup. 
 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/deceptive-covid-study-unmasked-abc-misleading-omicron-north-carolina-students-duke-mask-test-to-stay-11641933613