Is my reasoning sound that increased testing in AZ could also explain increased hospitalizations, despite what the experts are saying? My thought is that when an increased number of people know they have COVID-19 they are much more likely to seek help at the hospital for a symptom they normally wouldn't be going to the hospital for. If it were me and I found out I had COVID and was coughing a bunch, I would be 100x more likely go to the hospital immediately because I would not want things to go in a bad direction, vs. the if I developed a cough in any other year or while knowing I don't have the virus. And are they going to turn me down at the hospital if my symptoms aren't severe enough? Probably not, especially since hospitals are hurting and get funding for COVID patients. What I am trying to say is that I feel even hospital admittance is not necessarily a strong indicator of how bad COVID is spreading or is not spreading in a given city... deaths are really the only true indicator. Cases and even hospitalizations can be a result of increased testing. Thoughts?
I'm not in medicine, but I don't think this is right. People may be more likely to go to the hospital if they know they have COVID, but I don't think they are more likely to be admitted. The decision to admit is made by the doctors (based on objective indicators). I'm sure there is plenty of nuance and room for variation across clinical contexts, but I don't think this theory is likely to be supported.
On the topic of hospital visits - yes you would get turned back if you were not deemed serious enough. This is a main 'finding' some countries found was a big mistake. The US, UK, Sweden etc. had directives to send even elderly COVID patients back to their care homes if they were not critically ill, causing more spreads and more deaths (large majority of deaths in the >75 year olds).
I am not arguing any way here it's 'just a bad flu' of course, but 'influenza-like illness' trackers are handy. In general for hospital visits (this is for the whole US so NY state would obviously look worse), there is a tracker from CDC 'ILInet', used in a preprint to show COVID19 peaked and was on its way down well before the lockdown was implemented. (Not that I am advocating Wittkowski's entire pre-print, but chart is from
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.28.20036715v5)
But of course before lockdown, people were already sufficiently scared and distancing, many large gatherings cancelled etc. It shows that COVID19 hospital visit rates were similar to the previous years' worst flu seasons (2009-2010 and 2017-2018).
For 2019-2020: "Between October 1, 2019 and April 4, 2020, there have been 39 million - 56 million flu illnesses, 410,000 - 740,000 hospitalizations, and 24,000 - 62,000 deaths from flu, of which 169 are pediatric, according to the CDC."
That range of 39-56 million is an estimate only (which with 24000-62000 deaths yields the 0.1% IFR that people sometimes use/compare to). IFR would be lower if many more had no symptoms. Yields hospitalization rate of 1.3%. There's also the vaccine factor for the yearly flu, and estimates from CDC indicate it helps reduce hospital visits by 50%. (
https://www.rochesterregional.org/news/2020/01/flu-season-2020)
I assume later in the year or next we would have similar estimates and stats for COVID19 (infection rate estimates, etc.), but so far the rate for hospitalization is 1 to 2%, similar to influenza.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/