Backlash as Israel resumes COVID testing for all hospital patients
In a bid to gain a more "accurate" assessment of the number of new COVID patients, Israel's Ministry of Health issued a directive Sunday, obtained by Frontline News, requiring all hospitals to resume testing new patients upon admission.
The move comes as part of a recent wave of public health initiatives that are ostensibly designed to battle the latest increase in COVID cases. Currently, COVID cases are based on home tests and clinical assessments causing underreporting of new cases, according to the directive.
Hospital managers expressed their disapproval of the new requirements saying that testing all patients is excessive and will overburden hospital staff. Instead, they want to test only patients exhibiting clinical signs of a COVID infection.
The Association of Government Hospital Directors is expected to write a formal letter to the Ministry expressing their opposition, reported Kan News.
In addition, a group of Israeli doctors and scientists who have opposed past excessive COVID controls, commented on X (formerly Twitter), “The Ministry of Health continues to be committed to a failed product and a destructive concept and not to public health.”
The group also reminded the general public that “since this is an unnecessary examination without medical necessity, it is important for us to make it clear to the hospitalized and their families: There is no obligation for patients to perform [the COVID tests].”
The new regulation will undoubtedly increase the number of patients hospitalized with COVID even if they aren’t hospitalized because of COVID.
This policy of testing all new admissions, which was in effect during most of the pandemic, has been shown to artificially raise COVID hospitalization numbers.
A study from 2021 that investigated COVID admissions to Veterans Affairs hospitals in the US found approximately 36% of "COVID patients" were likely in the hospital for other reasons.
When the State of Massachusetts started to differentiate between patients who were being hospitalized because of COVID instead of merely with COVID, it was revealed that only about a third of COVID-positive patients were primarily hospitalized for COVID.
Similarly, in New York State 43% of COVID-positive patients were admitted for reasons unrelated to their COVID infection. In New York City, the figure was 51%.
Another study looked at children hospitalized in Northern California and found that among the 117 pediatric COVID-positive patients hospitalized between May 10, 2020, and February 10, 2021, 53 of them (or 45 percent) “were unlikely to be caused by SARS-CoV-2.”
The authors concluded that "reported hospitalization rates likely lead to overestimation of the true disease burden."
These studies and data sets covered a period that included previous variants that were less infectious. With the latest variant being a more moderate version of the Omicron variant, it is even more likely that the new hospitalization figures about to be reported will paint an even more inaccurate, and exaggerated, picture of COVID’s true disease burden.
Why inflate COVID hospitalization numbers? During a rare and candid admission, then-acting New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett explained that she over-emphasized COVID-hospitalizations among children, in order “to motivate pediatricians and families to seek the protection of vaccination.”
The new regulation that mandates COVID testing for all hospital patients is expected to significantly increase the number of hospitalized patients with COVID, even if they are not hospitalized because of the virus. Consistent with previous research, this would lead to an artificial inflation of the COVID hospitalization numbers and a distortion of COVID's real impact.
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