[snegu]

I am not by any means a "covid-denier," but it seems to me this is evidence that the impact of Covid may be exaggerated. It's hard to say by how much (and I would be interested to learn if this is happening in US hospitals also).

[jmull]

> this is evidence that the impact of Covid may be exaggerated

I don't think so. When assessing the impact of Covid, we look at the change in overall, all-cause numbers, like all-cause deaths. (Which do show a big impact.)

The reason we watch covid hospitalizations is that it is a good leading indicator of covid deaths. The "leading" part is important, because that allows health policy to react faster to what's happening, which makes it more effective at reducing the impact of Covid.

(You may also worry that covid deaths are being similarly over-counted, but the all-cause death numbers tell us we're actually undercounting the overall number.)

Anyway, I guess ultimately we can't stop people from misusing the covid hospitalizations number, but it is a very useful number.