Are hospital admissions still the best way to gauge the COVID crisis?

FILE PHOTO: Medical staff members treat patients inside the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ward at the Central Clinical Hospital of the Ministry of Interior and Administration in Warsaw, Poland, January 11, 2022. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

MADRID/LONDON (Reuters) - Using the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 to gauge the severity of the pandemic may not give an accurate picture in the Omicron era as more and more patients with the virus are being admitted for other reasons, some scientists say.

Governments have focused on hospitalisations to determine the need for restrictions but the data does not typically differentiate between people admitted because of COVID-19, and those who test positive on wards during routine checks.