Primary diagnoses & Covid patients II

The disease remains the primary diagnosis for patients with a positive test.

A columnist for The Telegraph asserted on Twitter:

70% of London Covid inpatients are not in hospital for Covid.
They test positive after admission for other ailments.
Only one third of “Covid patients” are being treated for Covid.
Get better data!

This is false. NHS England publish the available statistics on this matter. This is in their ‘primary diagnosis’ supplement. In two data files, their statistics are between 18th June and 21st December 2021. Acute trusts provide these figures on a ‘best endeavours’ basis.

These figures cover the stock of current patients, rather than flows of patients in and out. On 21st December, there were about 1,600 occupied ‘Covid-19 beds’ in London. These beds contain patients with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test. This count is only for acute trusts.

That test can be up to 14 days before admission, or after the patient has come to hospital. Among these patients, around 1,200 had Covid-19 as their primary diagnosis.

Three in four — not one in three — of such patients in London acute trusts have the disease…