Claims that hospital admissions for Covid-19 in England were overreported at the peak of the outbreak may not be telling the whole story.
However, a row has broken out after
claims were made that an investigation by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) had revealed that hospital patients could have been counted as a Covid-19 case even if they had been admitted for a different reason, or if they had previously tested positive and since recovered.
The definition was revised in June, such that only patients who tested positive shortly after entering hospital are now counted as Covid-19 admissions.
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Prof Graham Medley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, a member of Sage, told the Guardian there was no “investigation”, but rather Sage had been informed by the NHS that it had changed its definition of what counted as a hospital case of Covid.
Such changes, he added, were common practice as more was known about a disease, and would also have occurred in other countries. It did not mean
the reported data was inflated, wrong or untrustworthy, he noted.
“When you start a new epidemic and you don’t know what the disease is, you have a very inclusive and encompassing definition which gets refined as time goes on,” he said.
