When someone is sick enough with COVID-19 to be admitted to the hospital, families naturally want to know what the chances are. A new report set out to answer that specific question by examining the risk of dying in the hospital for patients whose main reason for admission was COVID-19. The study looked at data from hospitals across the United States.
However, the report does not yet share its key findings. It doesn't tell us what the actual risk of death was, how many patients were involved, or whether the risk has changed over time. This means we are left without the crucial numbers that would tell us about the current reality for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Because the results are not reported, we cannot say if the situation is improving, staying the same, or getting worse. The report highlights an important question but hasn't provided the answer. For now, this serves as a reminder of the ongoing need to understand COVID-19's impact, but it doesn't offer any new insight into what that impact actually is.