State changes COVID reporting to distinguish between primary and incidental hospital cases

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The coronavirus is so widespread in Massachusetts that the state health department is now asking hospitals to divide patients who test positive into two groups: primary and incidental cases.

Primary refers to patients hospitalized because they have a serious case of COVID-19. The incidental patients are those who happen to test positive when they arrive with some other urgent problem.The Department of Public Health has begun splitting its COVID case data into two groups -- primary and incidental. The data shown is for the week starting Jan. 13.

Some doctors say the picture created by this new reporting requirement is murky because it will miss many patients with serious cases of COVID. Hospitals are told to identify primary COVID patients based on whether they were prescribed the steroid dexamethasone, often used to reduce lung inflammation linked to COVID.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health says the use of dexamethasone is considered an indicator of moderate to severe COVID and will capture the vast majority of patients.

 

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