THE ATLANTIC: Are Pandemic Hospitalization Numbers Misleading Us?

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.

Just like any other successful virus, COVID-19 is becoming more contagious but less dangerous — unlike Joe Biden’s diktats to “combat” it.

Plus this from Matt Margolis:

There are some drawbacks to the study, however. Patients in the VA system are not representative of the U.S. population, as the VA patient populations tends to be older, with few women and no children. The VA also has a policy to test every patient for COVID, while this is not a policy in all hospitals. The study does show, however, that “the introduction of vaccines strongly correlates with a greater share of COVID hospital patients having mild or asymptomatic disease.”

If anything, using older patients would skew the results towards the studied cases being more serious than the national average. The study’s numbers then might be even more encouraging than they appear at first glance.