Health expert says COVID cases should no longer be 'major metric' of pandemic, urges shift to hospitalizations, deaths



Health expert Dr. Ashish Jha said Sunday that public health officials should stop using COVID-19 case data as the central metric by which the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic is measured.

What did Jha say?

Jha — the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and a former health expert at Harvard University — explained on ABC News' "This Week" the Omicron variant changes the game.

According to Jha, using case data to determine the severity of the pandemic is no longer reliable because Omicron appears less virulent despite being highly contagious.

"We have to do a shift. Look, for two years infections always preceded hospitalizations, which preceded deaths. So you could look at infections and know what was coming. Even through the Delta wave that was true because it was largely unvaccinated people who were getting infected," Jha explained.

"Omicron changes that. This is the shift we've been waiting for in many ways where we're moving to a phase where if you're vaccinated and particularly if you're boosted, you might get an infection. It might be a couple of days of not feeling so great, but you're going to bounce back. That's very different than what we have seen in the past," he continued. "So, I no longer think infections generally should be the major metric."

"Obviously, we can continue to track infections among unvaccinated people because those people will end up in the hospital at the same rate, but we really have to focus on hospitalizations and deaths now," Jha said.

Data supports administering booster shots sooner than 6 months: Dr. Jha | ABC News youtu.be

Public health officials in the U.S. apparently do not share Jha's position because they have been raising alarm about Omicron based on skyrocketing cases. However, the infection wave has not translated to higher incidences of hospitalization and death in other countries thus far.

In fact, based on rising case numbers and growing panic, leaders are returning to classic mitigation strategies including remote learning, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates.

Anything else?

During an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Jha denounced schools returning to remote learning when Christmas break ends.

"This really shouldn't even be on the table, and I'm disappointed to see this is happening," he said. "Schools should be absolutely the last place to close and the first place to open."

New study indicates about half of COVID hospitalizations this year were of patients with mild or no symptoms



A new study indicates COVID hospitalization data may be more bark than bite.

Throughout the pandemic, hospitalization metrics have been touted as the most reliable data point relaying the seriousness of the pandemic. The number of cases relies upon testing — and people generally only get tested if they are symptomatic — while deaths are a lagging indicator.

However, a new study examining nearly 50,000 COVID hospital admissions across more than 100 Veterans Affairs hospitals appears to undermine the veracity of this belief.

That's because COVID data does not differentiate the severity of cases of hospitalized patients.

In fact, the study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, indicates that a significant number of people who have been included in the "hospitalized" data on COVID dashboards experienced only mild symptoms, were asymptomatic, or were admitted to the hospital for reasons unrelated to COVID, but tested positive for COVID while admitted.

The Atlantic reported:

The study found that from March 2020 through early January 2021—before vaccination was widespread, and before the Delta variant had arrived—the proportion of patients with mild or asymptomatic disease was 36 percent. From mid-January through the end of June 2021, however, that number rose to 48 percent. In other words, the study suggests that roughly half of all the hospitalized patients showing up on COVID-data dashboards in 2021 may have been admitted for another reason entirely, or had only a mild presentation of disease.

This increase was even bigger for vaccinated hospital patients, of whom 57 percent had mild or asymptomatic disease. But unvaccinated patients have also been showing up with less severe symptoms, on average, than earlier in the pandemic: The study found that 45 percent of their cases were mild or asymptomatic since January 21.

There are several limitations to the study, according to the Atlantic:

  • Most importantly, although the study has a vast sample size, it includes few woman and no children.
  • Every VA hospital tests admitted patients for COVID, which is not a universal practice.
  • Most of the data used in the study was collected before the Delta-attributed case spike.

What is the significance of the study?

The most important finding of the study, according to Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University, is that it demonstrates the efficacy of COVID vaccines.

"People ask me, 'Why am I getting vaccinated if I just end up in the hospital anyway?'" Griffin told the Atlantic. "But I say, 'You'll end up leaving the hospital.'"

Graham Snyder, the medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, agreed.

"It's underreported how well the vaccine makes your life better, how much less sick you are likely to be, and less sick even if hospitalized," Snyder said. "That's the gem in this study."