Hospitalisation Rate For Adult Respiratory Conditions (part 4)

Lessons from an undisclosed NHS Trust

In my previous post in this series we discovered that the weekly hospitalisation rate for adult respiratory admissions to the emergency department of a sizeable UK NHS Trust during weeks 11 to 40 of 2020 were no different to those observed for the same weeks in 2017 and 2019, with 2018 being an exceptionally quiet year. It was only during weeks 41 to 53 of 2020 could we detect signs of elevated rates over and above that of previous years. We also discovered that rates for weeks 1 to 6 of 2021 were no different to those observed for the same weeks in 2017, with weeks 7 to 38 of 2021 mirroring those for 2017 and 2019. In sum we didn’t find much that would suggest a pandemic had gripped the nation aside from weeks 41 to 53 of 2020, when hospitalisation rates were exceptionally high compared to historic values. This is bizarre because it suggests that the first and second waves were non-existent in terms of hospitalisation of adult respiratory admissions; only in the third wave do we see …