https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/explained/126942505/why-our-covid19-hospitalisation-and-death-statistics-arent-clearcut
Hospitalisation numbers are probably a little inflated
The Health Ministry has confirmed that it counts any person in hospital with Covid as a hospitalisation, whether they’re there because of Covid symptoms or complications, or for something completely unrelated.
This counting method has skewed statistics worldwide, particularly for reported hospitalisations in kids. That’s because the majority of children who get Covid have either no symptoms, or mild symptoms. So there’s a higher chance the reason they’re in hospital has nothing to do with the fact they have the virus.
Otago University professor of child and women’s health, Peter McIntyre, says overseas data clearly shows that simply counting positive tests in hospitalised children is a poor indication of the numbers of children needing hospital treatment for Covid.
He points to a Hospital Pediatrics review emphasising the importance of distinguishing between children hospitalised with the Sars-CoV-2 virus, and those hospitalised for Covid-19.
“Reported hospitalisation rates greatly overestimate the true burden of Covid-19 disease in children,” the authors conclude.
Data from the New South Wales outbreak found 37 per cent of reported hospitalisations in children under 18 were for “social and vulnerable” reasons rather than medical ones. McIntyre says unpublished NSW data found about 80 per cent of children under 10 were only in hospital because their parents couldn’t care for them.
A Californian study found 40 per cent of kids in hospital with Covid had no symptoms, and 45 per cent of admissions were unlikely to be because of Covid.
Stuff was blocked from talking to Starship Children’s Hospital paediatricians about what they are actually seeing in children with Covid.
The Health Ministry could not say how many of the cases cited by Bloomfield were hospitalised because of Covid, rather than with Covid. A spokesman says the data covers all children with Covid-19, even when that is not the main reason for hospitalisation, because it affects how they are managed in hospital and might impact on how quickly they recover.