The Delaware Division of Public Health offered guidance on a growing number of Covid-19-related hospitalizations.
The number of hospitalizations has risen from about 30 to more than 60 in the past three weeks. However, the number of people in critical condition has remained at 15 or fewer.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, Gov. John Carney said information from hospitals has not pointed to any serious concerns. Hospital capacity remains ample.
The division issued the following background information after inquiries on the increase.
On current hospitalizations, that data point includes any individual who is hospitalized and has a positive test for COVID-19. The reason for hospitalization is not considered, so there are individuals with positive results who were not hospitalized specifically for COVID. The current hospitalization total does not include suspected cases like the new admission total does. Simply, the current hospitalization total reflects hospitalized patients who are COVID-19 positive.
And just a reminder, hospitalization data comes directly from the hospitals to the Division of Public Health. New admissions data comes from the Delaware Health Information Network (DHIN). DHIN reports the number of confirmed and suspect cases newly admitted to the hospital at a given point of time. A suspect case is usually someone with COVID-like symptoms, but who has not yet been tested. If the test result for a patient who is considered a suspect case comes back negative, then that patient is no longer considered a suspect case and that admission is subtracted from a previous day’s total.
To review hospital data in Delaware or other COVID data points:
https://myhealthycommunity.dhss.delaware.gov/locations/state
