Half of Quebec Patients Hospitalized ‘With COVID’ Not Admitted ‘for COVID’

Data from Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan show a similar trend

A health-care worker prepares to swab a man at a walk-in COVID-19 test clinic in Montreal North on May 10, 2020. The Canadian Press/Graham Hughes

Half of the COVID-19 patients in Quebec hospitals were admitted for reasons other than the disease itself, the province’s data shows. The figure is in the ballpark of the Ontario number, announced to be around 45 percent by the province’s chief medical officer.

In the latest daily update of Quebec’s COVID-19 situation, the province’s health ministry posted on Twitter on Jan. 21 that on Jan. 20, of the 3,086 hospitalized patients who have COVID-19, just half (1,549) were admitted for COVID-19.