Latest COVID report shows small decline in new hospitalizations, flat new deaths and large hike in serious condition patients

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

 

After five weeks of dramatic increases, the latest weekly government report on COVID in Thailand showed some moderation, as new COVID hospitalizations declined slightly for the first time since late March, COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition rose sharply, and new COVID deaths remained flat at 10.

 

The update by the Ministry of Public Health for the week April 30 to May 6 showed new COVID hospitalizations falling 6 percent to 1,699 (an average of 242 per day), compared to 1,811 the prior week. Although, the latest weekly tally is still the second highest number for 2023, and still shows a 10-fold increase over the 168 new weekly COVID hospitalizations count at the beginning of April.

 

New deaths attributed to COVID remained flat at 10 for the latest week, matching the same toll of official COVID deaths from the prior week. But the latest new weekly COVID deaths tally remains 5-fold higher than the weekly tally of 2 new COVID deaths reported at the beginning of April, and is at the highest weekly level since mid-February.

 

The worst news in the latest report came involving the count of total COVID patients currently hospitalized in serious condition (shown in dark purple on the chart above). That rose 39% to 219 COVID patients (the highest weekly total since mid-January), compared to 157 two weeks ago. The comparable number was 19 at the beginning of April.

 

Likewise, the number of COVID patients hospitalized and needing intubation to breathe (shown in light purple on the chart above) rose 43% to 113, compared to 79 for the prior week. The comparable number was 14 at the beginning of April.

 

The last time, prior to this past week, that the number of new COVID hospitalization in Thailand declined in the government's weekly reports was March 19-25, when new COVID hospitalizations declined to 150 compared to 178 the week before.

 

For this past week, the latest COVID report says Thailand now has had a total of 298 COVID deaths and 10,081 COVID hospitalizations since the start of 2023. Thailand stopped publicly reporting routine COVID cases and positive tests last fall, so the only COVID "case" numbers the government reports since then have been COVID hospitalizations.

 

 

https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/

 

https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/posts/pfbid08vvSqeMKTPrxdXjsGiJ2BobH8uN2yxtNbwHeXRPysHasetMVYNdDnxwnPHk43NVbl

 

 

 

 

[Lacessit]

Is there any analysis of how many of the serious condition patients were vaccinated vs unvaccinated?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

15 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Is there any analysis of how many of the serious condition patients were vaccinated vs unvaccinated?

None... though a couple weeks ago, one MoPH person said most of the new COVID deaths that week were either unvaccinated or long out of date vaccinated, as best as I can recall.

 

Elsewhere, the data clearly shows that unvaccinated people die from COVID even during the Omicron phase at much higher rates than the vaccinated, especially those who have been boosted.

 

Per the U.S. CDC:

 

• All vaccinated groups had overall lower risk of dying from COVID-19 and testing positive for COVID-19 compared with people who were unvaccinated.
• People who were vaccinated with an updated (bivalent) booster dose had lower rates of dying from COVID-19 and slightly lower rates of testing positive for COVID-19 compared with people who were vaccinated but had not received an updated booster dose. "

 

 

Source link:

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

28 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Is there any analysis of how many of the serious condition patients were vaccinated vs unvaccinated?

 

BTW, to get a meaningful analysis, you can't just count how many people in hospital are vaccinated vs unvaccinated....  because the available populations of each of the various groups (boosted, vaccinated, unvaccinated) are not the same in numbers.

 

To have a meaningful analysis, you have to look at the RATES at which people in each of the various groups are dying from or being hospitalized due to COVID.

 

In Thailand, for example, I believe the share of the population that has received some vaccination is somewhere in the 70-80% range, whereas the unvaccinated population is closer to the 20% range.....

 

That's why it's meaningless to just count raw hospitalization numbers of one group vs the other, because the population of vaccinated folks is about 4 times larger. And that's been a common misinformation approach used by anti-vax folks during the pandemic.

[Lacessit]

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

BTW, to get a meaningful analysis, you can't just count how many people in hospital are vaccinated vs unvaccinated....  because the available populations of each of the various groups (boosted, vaccinated, unvaccinated) are not the same in numbers.

 

To have a meaningful analysis, you have to look at the RATES at which people in each of the various groups are dying from or being hospitalized due to COVID.

 

In Thailand, for example, I believe the share of the population that has received some vaccination is somewhere in the 70-80% range, whereas the unvaccinated population is closer to the 20% range.....

 

That's why it's meaningless to just count raw hospitalization numbers of one group vs the other, because the population of vaccinated folks is about 4 times larger. And that's been a common misinformation approach used by anti-vax folks during the pandemic.

Agreed.