Maps, science, data & statistics tracking of COVID-19

[FordGT90Concept]

Lets stop watching fox entertainment for our news (and I'm stating this as a former fox cable network employee). This lie is insulting to those of us who live in the current epicenter of the epidemic and know people who fight this disease and have died from it.

Could have looked it up yourself...

Fact check: Hospitals get paid more if patients listed as COVID-19, on ventilators

Hospitals are paid more for Medicare patients with COVID-19, but a senator who first said that says he doesn't think the system is being gamed.

www.usatoday.com

Our ruling: True
We rate the claim that hospitals get paid more if patients are listed as COVID-19 and on ventilators as TRUE.

Hospitals and doctors do get paid more for Medicare patients diagnosed with COVID-19 or if it's considered presumed they have COVID-19 absent a laboratory-confirmed test, and three times more if the patients are placed on a ventilator to cover the cost of care and loss of business resulting from a shift in focus to treat COVID-19 cases.

This higher allocation of funds has been made possible under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act through a Medicare 20% add-on to its regular payment for COVID-19 patients, as verified by USA TODAY through the American Hospital Association Special Bulletin on the topic.

They're incentivized not to test for COVID-19, put COVID-19 down as part of the diagnosis, and kick them out the door. Bam, 20% profit increase!

 

[dirtyferret]

Could have looked it up yourself...

Fact check: Hospitals get paid more if patients listed as COVID-19, on ventilators

Hospitals are paid more for Medicare patients with COVID-19, but a senator who first said that says he doesn't think the system is being gamed.

www.usatoday.com

They're incentivized not to test for COVID-19, put COVID-19 down as part of the diagnosis, and kick them out the door. Bam, 20% profit increase!

next time you link an article try including the facts that make you look foolish, from your own article

Ask FactCheck reporter Angelo Fichera, who interviewed Jensen, noted, "Jensen said he did not think that hospitals were intentionally misclassifying cases for financial reasons. But that’s how his comments have been widely interpreted and paraded on social media."

Ask FactCheck's conclusion: "Recent legislation pays hospitals higher Medicare rates for COVID-19 patients and treatment, but there is no evidence of fraudulent reporting."

Julie Aultman, a member of the editorial board of the American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics, told PolitiFact it is “very unlikely that physicians or hospitals will falsify data or be motivated by money to do so.”

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It's happening (hear it from patient families and physicians being told to do it by administrators). We have no idea how prevalent it is and we won't because HIPPA forbids cross-examination of the data (e.g. if a patient sees another doctor for a second opinion and the COVID-19 diagnosis is dispelled, the original is staying on the books and they're getting paid for it).

 

[Tatty_Two]

Maybe the Government should cut that 20% to 5% or 10% then and maybe use the money to additionally support those most financially vulnerable.

 

[dirtyferret]

It's happening (hear it from patient families and physicians being told to do it by administrators). We have no idea how prevalent it is and we won't because HIPPA forbids cross-examination of the data (e.g. if a patient sees another doctor for a second opinion and the COVID-19 diagnosis is dispelled, the original is staying on the books and they're getting paid for it).

You are allowed your opinion just not your own facts making your opinion factually inaccurate and insulting to the people who risk their lives (and have lost their lives) helping others fight this disease. You also don't have stats from the time people died from covid19 yet there were no tests (thanks to our incompetent administration) to confirm the disease.

Maybe the Government should cut that 20% to 5% or 10% then and maybe use the money to additionally support those most financially vulnerable.

You have hospitals that do nothing but take care of covid19 patients. They would shut down without the support sending those patients to other hospitals and infecting people who are already sick.

 

[Tatty_Two]

You are allowed your opinion just not your own facts making your opinion factually inaccurate and insulting to the people who risk their lives (and have lost their lives) helping others fight this disease. You also don't have stats from the time people died from covid19 yet there were no tests (thanks to our incompetent administration) to confirm the disease.


You have hospitals that do nothing but take care of covid19 patients. They would shut down without the support sending those patients to other hospitals and infecting people who are already sick.

Even if they get paid for what they do + 10%, that still sounds like profit.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Even if they get paid for what they do + 10%, that still sounds like profit.

My doctor neighbor are actually telling me that hospitals are losing money over this, because so many people have stopped getting elective / optional health care.

Ex: I personally was going to get braces this year. But I'm delaying that until the COVID19 calms down a bit. And elective procedures are still "essential" in my area, but there's enough people panicking over the COVID19 that elective procedures have dropped dramatically.

Well, my neighbor is specifically a dentist. Lots of people cancelling trips during this pandemic, even though its "essential" and still open by the law. I'd imagine that most hospital trips are elective procedures... like getting blood lab results, sleep apnea studies, dentistry work, orthodontics, allergy studies, etc. etc. But if people are scared and they don't come in, the hospital loses money.

The economic disaster of COVID19 extends above and beyond the lockdown. I'm not convinced that ending the lockdown would solve anything. Oil prices were crashing long before the lockdowns were announced in the USA. The world is simply going to consume less stuff this year (except for toilet paper, apparently)

 

[dirtyferret]

Even if they get paid for what they do + 10%, that still sounds like profit.

I don't know but I do know many of the hospitals are competing against each other and raising prices. In late March several major hospitals reached out to us to get them face masks (we have no prior relationship with them). We just got them imported last week at 4x the cost of our December 2019 run.

 

[Tatty_Two]

I do understand the drop in demand for everything pretty much non Covid-19 related, it is exactly the same here, there are fears that Cancers, strokes and heart conditions are going un diagnosed because people are too scared to go to hospitals but the thought is that those patients will still be there at the point that infection rates become low and people may start to feel safer. I think it is recognised though that it may not be the case so we have recently started segregating elective services away from Hospitals who are treating Covid-19 patients, I appreciate with private sector hospitals in the US that may be difficult though. In my county (Worcestershire) which is mainly rural with a population of perhaps 800,000 we have 3 hospitals, only 2 of them (the biggest) are treating Covid-19 patients, the other one where my wife normally works is being set up for all elective stuff to make a start on those other patients by the end of this month.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Maybe the Government should cut that 20% to 5% or 10% then and maybe use the money to additionally support those most financially vulnerable.

They should cut COVID specific (including ventilation) to 0% and raise everything 10% so there's no incentive, whatsoever, to diagnose anything specific but still provide relief to them because they're seeing far fewer patients than they normally would and offset the additional PPE costs they're having to pay across the board.

You are allowed your opinion just not your own facts making your opinion factually inaccurate and insulting to the people who risk their lives (and have lost their lives) helping others fight this disease. You also don't have stats from the time people died from covid19 yet there were no tests (thanks to our incompetent administration) to confirm the disease.

About half of my family works in healthcare. The point is all numbers (cases and deaths) in the USA are not reliable. The degree is unknown.

My doctor neighbor are actually telling me that hospitals are losing money over this, because so many people have stopped getting elective / optional health care.

Exactly, they need help but this way inflates COVID-19 numbers because they gave financial incentive to do so.

My local hospital lost over $700k last month because electives are pretty much gone and people will let their health get much worse before going in.

 

[dragontamer5788]

About half of my family works in healthcare. The point is all numbers (cases and deaths) in the USA are not reliable. The degree is unknown.

Obviously. Its ugly when you see how a sausage is made, but that doesn't change the fact that they're tasty. The numbers in the USA are the best the USA can get. I trust US's numbers more than many other countries. And months from now, the CDC will go over the numbers again and revise them (either upwards or downards) based on newly available facts.

Lets make a little bet. Do you believe that the US's numbers will be revised upwards, or downwards, in the next few months? Because I bet you the numbers will be revised upwards. The USA typically undercounts deaths. It undercounted for Hurricane Maria. It undercounted for opioids. It will undercount for COVID19. Lets set the date as... July, see whether the numbers are up or down at that point.

Hmmm... the bet needs to be more specific than that. Lets take the current CDC US Death Toll for the month of March of 3354 deaths (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm). Do you expect this number to go up, or down, by July?

Note:

Percent of expected deaths is the number of deaths for all causes for this week in 2020 compared to the average number across the same week in 2017–2019. Previous analyses of 2015–2016 provisional data completeness have found that completeness is lower in the first few weeks following the date of death (<25%), and then increases over time such that data are generally at least 75% complete within 8 weeks of when the death occurred (8).

Provisional Death Count for April is 42,129 deaths. Same question, we'll give it till August for CDC to revise the numbers. Do you think this number is going up, or down?

 

[the54thvoid]

--------------------------------

That's a line. (I'm being creative). Please don't cross it with more baiting and arguing about numbers. This was created by the OP for stats - not subjective postulating about numbers. We know they'll change, so we can revisit it when we're all looking back saying, remember 2020?

Stick to known figures and stop arguing. Pretty please?

 

[moproblems99]

--------------------------------

That's a line. (I'm being creative).

X. X. X. X x x x x x
X. X. X. X. X x x x x x
--------------------------------
X x x x x x x x x x x
X x x x x x x x x x x

These are all the times it has been crossed.

Edit:

I feel for you. Perhaps you can just move the posts to the lounge Covid thread. That way they are still visible and will be where they belong. Also, people will get the notifications when they are quoted in that thread.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Personally, I like reply bans

 

[Vayra86]

My doctor neighbor are actually telling me that hospitals are losing money over this, because so many people have stopped getting elective / optional health care.

Ex: I personally was going to get braces this year. But I'm delaying that until the COVID19 calms down a bit. And elective procedures are still "essential" in my area, but there's enough people panicking over the COVID19 that elective procedures have dropped dramatically.

Well, my neighbor is specifically a dentist. Lots of people cancelling trips during this pandemic, even though its "essential" and still open by the law. I'd imagine that most hospital trips are elective procedures... like getting blood lab results, sleep apnea studies, dentistry work, orthodontics, allergy studies, etc. etc. But if people are scared and they don't come in, the hospital loses money.

The economic disaster of COVID19 extends above and beyond the lockdown. I'm not convinced that ending the lockdown would solve anything. Oil prices were crashing long before the lockdowns were announced in the USA. The world is simply going to consume less stuff this year (except for toilet paper, apparently)

That and a lot of expertise and equipment is also quite likely just sitting there doing nothing. Lots of other essential treatment is postponed or cancelled until further notice, even over here. Your cancer treatment programme? Sorry, gotta wait a bit. That's definitely costing money. In addition, whole wings of hospitals have to be quarantined and this means the hospital's efficiency and logistics are also completely scrambled.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

And months from now, the CDC will go over the numbers again and revise them (either upwards or downards) based on newly available facts.

Upwards because CDC very rarely second guesses death certificates and diagnoses.

Do you expect this number to go up, or down, by July?

Do you think this number is going up, or down?

Up and up, because the game plan is controlled herd immunity and the statement above.

The more interesting question is COVID fatality rate. I expect that to go down as testing goes up.

 

[HTC]

The more interesting question is COVID fatality rate. I expect that to go down as testing goes up.

True, but it's very much impacted by the hospital's "level of swamped": most of USA hasn't had it but @ least NY has, which has had their numbers be much more severe than the rest of the country.

 

[moproblems99]

For Florida, our governor was harassed and slandered because he didn't institute a statewide lock down until April. Yet, here we are the 3rd(?) Most populace state and yet barely in the top 10 of cases and deaths.



Edit:

We have the second oldest population, 3rd highest, yet we are only 32nd in the nation in deaths per 1 million people. We have some of the laxest lockdown policies. I don't believe the lock downs are really the driving force.

 

[dirtyferret]

For Florida, our governor was harassed and slandered because he didn't institute a statewide lock down until April. Yet, here we are the 3rd(?) Most populace state and yet barely in the top 10 of cases and deaths.

View attachment 154515

Edit:

We have the second oldest population, 3rd highest, yet we are only 32nd in the nation in deaths per 1 million people. We have some of the laxest lockdown policies. I don't believe the lock downs are really the driving force.



It certainly didn't help that they didn't use the resources they had. Only like 30 people were sent to the Mercy. And then they decided to store Covid positive people at old folks homes. Yet this is the guy that gets great approval ratings. When the state has more nursing home deaths than almost any state total and many countries.

Florida is screwed. Basically every other flight from metro NYC is going to one of Florida four major metro areas. You won't be hit hard now but once NYC is set free it will go through Florida like crap through a goose and that nitwit governor won't help.

 

[the54thvoid]

Domestic US politics is still politics. Stick to known virus figures and steer clear of blaming state politicians for things we don't get to make decisions on, nor have the briefings on which to make such decisions.

 

[moproblems99]

Spoiler: Quoted politics

Florida is screwed. Basically every other flight from metro NYC is going to one of Florida four major metro areas. You won't be hit hard now but once NYC is set free it will go through Florida like crap through a goose and that nitwit governor won't help.

Spoiler: Politics

Well, I am fine with keeping the filth in New York. No need to let it spread. Which is exactly the reason these lockdowns are stupid. They can't last as long as they will need to to have any meaningful effect. It should be nothing more than controlling the 'hot spots'. The rest of the world can play nice.

@the54thvoid , I tried.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

True, but it's very much impacted by the hospital's "level of swamped": most of USA hasn't had it but @ least NY has, which has had their numbers be much more severe than the rest of the country.

But remember NYC, 15-21% of their population has contracted SARS-CoV-2 in the span of just a few months. If 70% is the threshold for ending the pandemic, they are 3.33x to 4.67x of the way there--likely closer than anywhere else in the world. Even if they manage to slow the rate down by half which should be enough for the healthcare system to handle, they'll likely have herd immunity by the end of the year.

 

[HTC]

But remember NYC, 15-21% of their population has contracted in the span of just a few months. If 70% is the threshold for ending the pandemic, they are 3.33x to 4.67x of the way there--likely closer than anywhere else in the world. Even if they manage to slow the rate down by half which should be enough for the healthcare system to handle, they'll have herd immunity by the end of the year.

I was referring solely to the death rate.

As seen with Italy's Lombardy Region, the situation got bad enough where the doctors were forced to literally choose who to ventilate, and that dramatically inflated their region's death count: Italy's death COVID-19 rate is high but Lombardy's Region is much much higher that that.

Italy: COVID deaths by region 2025 | Statista

As of January 2025, Sicily's COVID-19 deaths are the highest among the Italian southern regions. Lombardy remains the region with the highest figure overall.

www.statista.com

Though i think it hasn't gotten to that point in NY state, the fact is NY state is by far the worst hit region in USA and, as such, the death rate in the area far surpasses USA's average:

Total number of COVID deaths in the U.S. by state 2023 | Statista

As of March 2023, the state with the most COVID deaths had over 101,000 deaths.

www.statista.com

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Deaths mean nothing without population to give it context:
Lombardy: 10,088,484 (147 deaths per 100k)
New York: 19,453,561 (135 deaths per 100k)
--New York City: 8,398,748 (43.2% of New York's population is in New York City)
----Kings (Brooklyn): 5902
----Richmond (Staten Island): 814
----Queens (Queens): 5717
----Bronx (The Bronx): 3784
----New York (Manhattan): 2412
----TOTAL: 18,629 (71.1% of deaths for the state of New York)‬


CDC has it's own data tracker...

COVID Data Tracker

CDC’s home for COVID-19 data. Visualizations, graphs, and data in one easy-to-use website.

www.cdc.gov

Mexico is getting hammered:

Hospitals treating COVID-19 in Mexican capital quickly filling up

Coronavirus patients were being turned away from hospitals in the Mexican capital on Saturday, as both public and private medical facilities quickly fill up and the number of new infections continues to rise.

www.reuters.com

 

[HTC]

Portugal's numbers have been updated:



On the left, yesterday's numbers and on the right, today's numbers (click for full picture):

- 27581 confirmed infected --- 175 more
- 2549 recovered --- 50 more
- 1135 fatalities --- 9 more
- 274536 suspected cases --- 2093 more
- 517660 tests taken --- numbers weren't updated
- 2754 waiting for test results --- 201 less
- 26344 under watch from authorities --- 323 less
- 797 hospitalized --- 18 less
- 112 in ICU --- 8 less

Here's 2 more pics with the current demographics of infected and deaths:

As can be seen, only a single individual below 40 has died from COVID-19: dunno if he had other health problems besides COVID-19. A while back, i posted about a Portuguese teenager death that was linked to COVID-19: turns out it was acute meningitis instead.

Even 40 to 49 age bracket has seen fewer deaths than i'd expect but those really REALLY affected are of age 80+, which have just over 2/3 of all COVID-19 deaths (18.21% of those infected in that age group): a direct consequence of the serious infection rates across multiple retirement homes.