Baker: Many COVID-19 hospitalizations are asymptomatic

Chris Lisinski

The Baker administration and hospital leaders are “working hard” to get a clearer understanding of how many patients counted in data reports as COVID-positive were hospitalized for treatment of the disease and how many simply tested positive while seeking some other treatment, Gov. Charlie Baker said.

After telling reporters earlier this week that “many” patients counted in his administration’s COVID active hospitalization tally are not actually hospitalized with highly infectious coronavirus as the main reason, Baker clarified Thursday that some of the individuals that fall into that daily count are asymptomatic.

“When you call the hospitals and you talk to them one at a time, a significant number of the people who we count as COVID-positive are not in the hospital because they have COVID, they’re in the hospital for some other purpose and they got tested positive when they came in,” Baker said. “That’s an important element in how we think about managing COVID activity generally.”

One hospital leader Baker spoke to Thursday, the governor said, reported having five or six patients for the coronavirus in the facility, “all but one” of whom came for another reason and tested positive upon arrival.