COVID treatment & vaccination status

Lessons from an undisclosed NHS Trust

Over in John Dee’s Almanac an interesting discussion is developing revealing another pile of official fudge, this time with respect to age band, vaccination status and positive test result. Simpson and his paradox have never been so busy!

After cogitating on the matter I wanted a simple question answering and that is how many positive test results end in treatment for COVID (as opposed to treatment for a bruised knee or food poisoning)? Fortunately I’m in a position to answer that since I have 296,331 emergency department admissions records in my pocket revealing COVID status and treatment offered over the period Jan - Sep 2021 for a single but sizeable NHS Trust.

In the crosstabulation below we discover 589/3,948 (14.9%) of admissions yielding a positive test result on admission went on to receive appropriate treatment for COVID; ‘appropriate’ in this instance including supplemental oxygen therapy and ventilation. So there you go, some 15% of positive-testing COVID admissions required the sort of treatment the mass media regularly push our way.

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With that result under my belt I couldn’t resist having a look at how those 3,948 COVID cases fared in terms of treatment and vaccination status (defined as delay between dose and admission as a positive-testing case).

Incidentally, has anybody else noticed the authorities are now preferring to use the phrase ‘new positive test’ instead of COVID case?

Herewith another crosstabulation…

What immediately caught my attention was the elevated risk of respiratory procedure for dose 1 cases arriving with 21 days (21.4%) compared to unvaccinated COVID admissions (15.1%). Beyond this it’s pretty much of a muchness at 12.4% - 12.8% risk.

Those who like these sort of things may wish to note the rate difference between unvaccinated and dose 1 <=21 day admissions is statistically significant (comparison of proportions: chi-square = 7.20, 1d.f.; p=0.0073)